XX11 LIFE OP ALBANY HANCOCK. 



ing these Mollusks to the level of the Acephalous Medusae; 

 and he, moreover, attempted to lay down the vicious principle 

 that the external characters of animals are altogether inde- 

 pendent of, and are no key whatever to, their internal 

 structure. 



The theory of Phlebenterism, as it was called, was soon 

 attacked, and shown to be false, by a rising young naval 

 surgeon, M. de Souleyet, in a paper presented to the 

 Academie des Sciences in 1844; and Naturalists in England, 

 Germany, and Italy were astonished at the novelty and bold- 

 ness of M. de Quatrefages' assertions. So important was the 

 discussion considered by the savants of Paris that special com- 

 missions for the investigation of the new theory were 

 appointed, by the Academie des Sciences in 1844, and by the 

 Societe de Biologie in 1849. 



Both commissions having examined all producible evidence, 

 including that from Newcastle, reported so diametrically 

 against Phlebenterism, that the very name immediately after- 

 wards disappeared from the language of science. 



It was the interest in Anatomy and Physiology inspired by 

 the discussion of this theory that determined Albany Hancock 

 to pursue his researches into internal anatomy, whilst, at the 

 same time, he paid due attention to external characters; 

 and, having once got into the right track of research, he 

 never looked back, but pursued the path which led him to 

 honour and distinction. 



We began with the regular study of Eulis in 1844, and in 

 the following January the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History' published the first part of the anatomy of this mollusk, 

 in 1848 the second and third, and in 1849 the last part. 



The investigation of Doris, another genus of Nudibranchs, 

 was next undertaken : the results, embodied in a short sum- 

 mary, were communicated to the Edinburgh meeting of the 

 British Association in 1850, and afterwards a paper " On the 

 Anatomy of Doris" was read for us, in 1851, by Professor E. 

 Forbes, to the Eoyal Society, and printed in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions' for 1852. 



The above-mentioned papers on the anatomy of Eolis con- 

 tained a more complete description of the organs, particularly 

 those of the digestive, nervous, vascular, and reproductive 

 systems, than had up to that time been given, and the 

 degradation to which M. de Quatrefages had condemned 

 those- elegant mollusks was shown to be imaginary. 



In the paper on Doris was announced the discovery of the 

 existence in this, and in other closely allied mollusks, of the 

 sympathetic or ganglionic system of nerves, and a nearly 



