76 Greek Biology 



With the advance of the sixteenth century the works of 

 Aristotle, and to a less extent those of Dioscorides and Galen, 

 became the great stimulus to the foundation of a new bio- 

 logical science. Matthioli (1520-77), in his commentary on 

 Dioscorides (first edition 1544), which was one of the first works 

 of its type to appear in the vernacular, made a number of 

 first-handobservations on the habits and structure of plants that 

 is startling even to a modern botanist. About the same time 

 Galenic physiology, expressed also in numerous works in the 

 vulgar tongue and rousing the curiosity of the physicians, became 

 the clear parent of modern physiology and comparative anatomy. 

 But, above all, the Aristotelian biological works were fertilizers 

 of the mind. It is very interesting to watch a fine observer such 

 as Fabricius ab Acquapendente (1537-1619) laying the founda- 

 tions of modern embryology in a splendid series of first-hand 

 observations, treating his own great researches almost as a com- 

 mentary on Aristotle. What an impressive contrast to the arid 

 physics of the time based also on Aristotle ! ' My purpose ', says 

 Fabricius, ' is to treat of the formation of the foetus in every 

 animal, setting out from that which proceeds from the egg : for 

 this ought to take precedence of all other discussion of the 

 subject, both because it is not difficult to make out Aristotle's 

 view of the matter, and because his treatise on the Formation 

 of the Foetus from the egg is by far the fullest, and the subject 

 is by much the most extensive and difficult.' x 



The industrious and careful Fabricius, with a wonderful 

 talent for observation lit not by his own lamp but by that 

 of Aristotle, bears a relation to the master much like that held 

 by Aristotle's pupil in the flesh, Theophrastus. The works 

 of the two men, Fabricius and Theophrastus, bear indeed 

 a resemblance to each other. Both rely on the same group 

 of general ideas, both progress in much the same ordered calm 

 from observation to observation, both have an inspiration which 



1 Hieronimo Fabrizio of Acquapendente, De formato foetu, Padua, 1604. 



