CHAPTER IV 



cuvier's younger contemporaries 



THE FIRST HALF of the eighteenth century shows in general a lively de- 

 velopment in the sphere of biology. The splendid progress made 

 simultaneously in physics and chemistry created innumerable fresh 

 problems also in the biological sciences; voyages of geographical explora- 

 tion, which were made to hitherto unknown lands on the precedent of 

 Humboldt, resulted in new material for investigation, which broadened 

 existing ideas and broke down old systematical barriers — ■ we need only 

 mention such animals as the duck-billed platypus and the lung-fish in order 

 to show clearly the importance of these discoveries — • and, finally, the vast 

 technical and economic progress of that epoch awakened an interest in the 

 study of nature, which also proved of benefit to biology. Among the techni- 

 cal inventions that belong to this period may first of all be mentioned the 

 improvement in the construction of the microscope, which alone has given 

 mankind a knowledge of a whole series of hitherto unknown life-forms; the 

 economic progress, again, rendered possible the instituting of collections 

 such as earlier times had never dreamt of, as well as the carrying out of costly 

 experiments on a large scale. As a result of all these circumstances, of which 

 many keen scientists took full advantage, biology achieved more and more 

 brilliant results as the years went by, with the consequent enhancement of 

 its general cultural reputation — in spite of the indignant protests and the 

 scornful rejection of the idealistic philosophers. 



Progress of comparative anatomy 

 One branch of biological research which, more than any other, made rapid 

 strides during the period under discussion was that of descriptive and com- 

 parative anatomy. Cuvier, its most brilliant precursor, had many pupils in 

 different countries, both direct and indirect, who carried on the numerous 

 ideas he brought out, and besides these there were many others whose re- 

 search work resulted in valuable contributions towards the progress of 

 science. A number of the most representative of these scientists will be dealt 

 with in the present chapter. 



Carl Asmund Rudolphi was born in 1771 in Stockholm, of German 

 parents. He studied medicine at Greifswald, at the German university of 

 Swedish Pomerania, becoming professor in anatomy first there and afterwards 

 in Berlin, where he worked until his death, in 1831. He founded the Berlin 



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