74 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



libraries of Europe and from reports of adventurous travelers 

 in foreign lands. 



The great awakening which spread over Europe in the six- 

 teenth century after the long intellectual paralysis of the 

 Middle Ages led to the revival of independent observation of 

 natural phenomena. It was but natural that interest in in- 

 vestigation should have centered in the great universities, and, 

 owing to the connection of medicine with these seats of learn- 

 ing, attention was first given to the study of the structure and 

 functions of the human body and of the higher animals. 

 Comparative anatomy, having thus arisen in connection with 

 the study of medicine, was developed in the medical schools 

 and, in fact, until a very recent date, it has been almost 

 universally assigned to the Medical Faculty, especially in 

 Europe. The spirit of inquiry which now became general, 

 showed itself in the anatomical schools of the Italian univer- 

 sities, and later at Oxford, and a great impetus was given to 

 observation and experiment by the learned scientific academies 

 and societies which sprang up over Europe in the seventeenth 

 century. 



All through the Middle Ages the sum-total of medical and 

 anatomical knowledge was contained in the works of Galen 

 whose authority had remained unquestioned from the time of 

 the second century. It was not until the middle of the six- 

 teenth century that the modern development began, and the 

 numerous errors of Galen were pointed out in the light of the 

 knowledge which was then acquired from a scientific investi- 

 gation of the human cadaver. Much repugnance had pre- 

 viously been shown to dissection of the human body, and 

 many and gross errors had been in existence since the time of 

 Galen from an unwarranted application to human anatomy of 

 discoveries made upon the lower animals. 



The great names of the sixteenth century in anatomical 

 investigation are Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of 

 the blood, and the Italians, Vesalius, Eustachius, Fabricius, 

 Riolan and Severinus. 



Later on, in the seventeenth century, Malpighi, Swammer- 

 dam and Leeuwenhoek introduced the microscope, and inves- 

 tigation was at once carried into the field of microscopical 



