CHAPTER XIII 



DESCRIPTIVE BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH DURING THE RENAISSANCE 



i'. Zoography 



THE EARLIEST ACTIVITIES of Renaissancc research in the biological field 

 were, in accordance with the general tendency of that period, purely 

 philological. New editions of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, and other 

 natural philosophers of antiquity were published, their language commented 

 upon, and attempts made to explain their contents. However, the actual 

 historical course of events compelled the learned world to carry out inde- 

 pendent work in regard to natural objects as well. Even the fauna and flora 

 of central Europe were very imperfectly known to the ancient philosophers, 

 and the information regarding many of them needed supplementing with 

 innumerable facts, which entailed much independent research work. And 

 this became all the more necessary when the great geographical discoveries 

 acquainted mankind with the perfectly new and exceptionally rich nature 

 of the tropics. All these circumstances combined to produce an abundant 

 literature of a purely descriptive kind, both zoological and botanical, which, 

 thanks to the art of book-printing, received such widespread publication as 

 the biological works of antiquity could never hope for. Further, the methods 

 of reproducing pictures, discovered in connexion with book-printing — 

 woodcuts and copperplate engraving — now for the first time made it pos- 

 sible to utilize the illustration in the service of scientific literature — a 

 means of extending human knowledge the importance of which can be ap- 

 preciated only if we consider what it means in our own day and what would 

 be the consequence if modern science were to be deprived of it. A review of 

 some of the more eminent representatives of this branch of biological science 

 during the Renaissance will give us some idea of the objects they aimed at 

 and the respects in which they advanced this science. For this purpose we 

 shall for the moment discuss only the results of zoological research during 

 this period; the botanical results may perhaps more suitably be left to a 

 subsequent chapter dealing with the history of biological classification. 



Edward Wotton (i49z-i555) essentially represents the point of view 

 of mediaeval science. The son of a college porter in the University of Oxford, 

 he studied medicine in his native city and became a physician with a wide 

 and distinguished practice. His interest in nature he recorded in a lengthy 



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