156 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



He early showed an inclination for medical studies, which he was able to 

 carry out first at home under Bartholin, and then in Amsterdam and Leyden. 

 He soon made important anatomical discoveries, which gained him a Euro- 

 pean reputation. After this he spent some years in his native city seeking 

 employment at the University, but as he was constantly passed over in favour 

 of the relations of Bartholin, he grew weary of waiting, and having received 

 his paternal inheritance, he journeyed to Paris. There he studied cerebral 

 anatomy for a time, publishing a treatise on that subject, and then went to 

 Italy, where he worked at Pavia and Florence. The Grand Duke of Tuscany 

 was very gracious to him and gave him money to continue his studies and 

 his publications. Under these new conditions, however, Steno underwent 

 a severe spiritual crisis, resulting in his being converted to Catholicism, a 

 step which brought him brilliant worldly advantages, but soon completely 

 upset his intellectual balance. After spending some time in his native country, 

 where the authorities had now learnt — too late — to estimate him at his 

 true value and offered him a position that would bring in a good income, 

 though at the same time they naturally did not look with favour upon his 

 religious conversion, he returned to Italy, took holy orders, and was soon 

 appointed bishop and chief organizer of Catholic propaganda in north Ger- 

 many. In the latter capacity he displayed fanatic zeal; he addressed a letter 

 to Spinoza, amongst others, with whom he had been acquainted in his 

 youth, urging him to become converted, which the latter declined to answer. 

 At the same time he gave himself up to violent asceticism, which rapidly 

 undermined his health. He was only forty-eight when he died (in the year 

 1686), and he was buried with great pomp at Florence, where a fine monu- 

 ment in the Church of San Lorenzo perpetuates his memory. 



As an anatomist Steno devoted himself principally to the study of two 

 organic systems: the glandular and the muscular systems. With regard to 

 the glands, Glisson and Wharton had, of course, been the pioneers, but Steno 

 at any rate made fresh and important contributions to the knowledge of 

 these organs; he discovers the exit of the parotid gland, which has been 

 given the name of " diictus stenoniatius" ; he thoroughly explained the anat- 

 omy of the other glands of the mouth, and, lastly, found the exit of the 

 tear gland. As an anatomist of the muscular system his chief aim was, as 

 he himself says, to apply to anatomy the laws of mathematics and thus to 

 create a geometrical system for the muscles. His main work on muscular 

 investigation, in which he carefully analyses, along the lines just indicated, 

 a number of muscles, starting from their simple component parts, was pub- 

 lished twelve years before Borelli's important work. In this book Steno's 

 theory is expounded, though Borelli expressly states that its rules apply only 

 in certain special cases. In actual fact Steno's work deals with a far more 

 limited field of investigation than Borelli's; in method it is more speculative 



