VON BAER AND RISE OF EMBRYOLOGY. 99 



of the subject, in which Wolff is heralded as its founder, and the one 

 central figure prior to Pander and Von Baer. 



The embryologies! work of Wolff's great predecessors Harvey and 

 Malpighi has been passed over too lightly. Although these men have 

 received ample recognition in closely related fields of investigation, 

 their insight into those mysterious events which culminate in the 

 formation of a new animal has been rarely appreciated. Now and 

 then a few writers, as Brooks and Whitman, have pointed out the great 

 worth of Harvey's work in embryology, but fewer have spoken for 

 Malpighi in this connection. Koelliker, it is true, in his address at the 

 unveiling of the statue of Malpighi, in his native town of Crevalcuore, 

 in 1894, gives him well-merited recognition as the founder of embry- 

 ology, and Sir Michael Foster has written in a similar vein in his 

 delightful ' Lectures on the History of Physiology.' 



However great was Harvey's work in embryology, I venture to say 

 that Malpighi's was greater when considered as a piece of observa- 

 tion. Harvey's work is more philosophical; he discusses the nature 

 of development and shows unusual powers as an accurate reasoner. 

 But that part of his treatise devoted to observation is far less extensive 

 and exact than Malpighi's, and throughout his lengthy discussions he 

 has the flavor of the ancients. 



Malpighi's work, on the other hand, flavors more of the moderns. 

 In terse descriptions, and with many sketches, he shows the changes 

 in the hen's egg from the close of the first day of development on- 

 wards. 



It is a noteworthy fact that, at the period in which he lived, Mal- 

 pighi could so successfully curb the tendency to indulge in wordy 

 disquisitions, and that he was satisfied to observe carefully, and tell his 

 story in a simple way. This quality of mind can not be too much 

 admired. As Emerson has said : " I am impressed with the fact that 

 the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see 

 something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people 

 can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who 

 can see. To see clearly is poetry, philosophy and religion all in one.'' 

 But ' to see ' here means to interpret as well as to observe. Harvey 

 was also an original observer, but, in embryology, not in so eminent 

 a degree as Malpighi.* Could, we have had the insight of Harvey 

 united to the observing powers of Malpighi, we should have had an 

 almost perfect combination. 



Although there were observers in the field of embryology before 



* Notwithstanding the deserved praise of Malpighi as an observer, it may 

 be remarked, in passing, that he was not the leader of his period in pure ob- 

 servation and description. Swammerdam showed even greater powers for 

 critical and finished work in this direction. (See 'Malpighi, Swammerdam, 

 and Leeuwenhoek,' Pop. Sci. Mo., April. 1901. 



