30L THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



natural philosophy, nevertheless carried out exact investigations on special 

 subjects. A fev^^ examples of this exact natural research during the age of 

 natural philosophy deserve to be quoted here as representing a transition to 

 modern biology, which developed during the succeeding epoch. 



In France, as we have already found, comparative anatomy had been 

 considerably developed through the work of BufFon and Daubenton. But de- 

 scriptive anatomy had also had a brilliant representative during that same 

 century in the Dane Jacob Benignus Winslow, a relative of Steno, who, like 

 the latter, became a Catholic and was fully naturalized abroad, but who, in 

 contrast to his predecessor, enjoyed an unusually long life of activity. He 

 died in 1760 at the age of ninety-one. His description of the human anatomy 

 was especially complete, particularly as regards the topographical section, and 

 he made the medical faculty in Paris, where he was professor, an important 

 centre of anatomical study. He and his immediate pupils were, however, 

 outshone by a man who was able to develop even the human anatomy along 

 comparative lines on the model of Daubenton and Camper. 



Felix Vicq d'Azyr was born in 1748 at Valogne, in Normandy. He was 

 the son of a physician, and after being educated at school, he chose his 

 father's career and studied in Paris with such success that only eight years 

 after entering the profession he was able to give lectures there. He had no 

 academical career, however. He was passed over when a vacancy was filled 

 in the professorship of anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes in 1774, and again 

 upon the appointment of a successor to Buffon. Instead, he was sent by the 

 Board to study and stamp out serious epidemics in certain provincial parts 

 of France, and he wrote some valuable accounts of them. In the field of 

 veterinary science also he made some important contributions. Besides this 

 work, he held private courses in anatomy, which were very popular, and 

 he also collaborated in the founding of the Royal Society of Medicine in 

 Paris, of which he became permanent secretary; in that capacity he composed 

 a number of brilliant epitaphs upon past distinguished physicians, on ac- 

 count of which he was appointed Buffon's successor in the French Academy. 

 At last he was made personal physician to the King, but when the Revolu- 

 tion broke out, shortly afterwards, this post of honour was a cause of much 

 trouble and danger. His health, which had already given way under stress 

 of work, now broke down; finally, as a result of attending the famous feast 

 of the Supreme Being, under compulsion, he contracted a chill and died a 

 few days later. 



Vicq d'Azyr's career was thus a short one, and, moreover, his energies 

 were divided as a result of the practical work he had to carry out in order 

 to make a living. On these practical activities, indeed, he expended much 

 labour, and his works on epidemics, veterinary surgery, and organizational 

 problems in practical medicine are fairly numerous. But in spite of all this 



