THE HISTORY OF COMPARATIVE 

 ANATOMY 



PART I.— A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 

 LITERATURE 



By F. J. COLE, D.Sc. OxoN., Professor of Zoology, and NELLIE B. EALES, B.Sc, 

 Museum Curator, University College, Reading 



Recently one of us made a preliminary attempt to apply 

 graphic methods to an historical study of anatomical museums. 1 

 The result was more interesting than conclusive, principally 

 because the number of such museums which could be traced 

 (537) was too small to admit of satisfactory treatment by 

 statistical methods. Further, a museum is a complex and 

 shifting quantity somewhat beyond the power of ordinary 

 figures to express. It appeared probable, however, that a 

 similar attempt on the literature of comparative anatomy 

 generally would be more successful. A publication is an 

 isolated and definite piece of work, it is permanent, accessible, 

 and may be judged, and in most cases it is not difficult to 

 ascertain when, where, and by whom it was done, and to plot 

 the results on squared paper. Our object was as follows : (1) 

 to represent by a curve the activities of comparative anatomists 

 as a whole from the sixteenth century to i860 ; (2) to detach 

 from this general scheme and plot separately the performances 

 of each European country ; (3) to determine in a similar way 

 which groups of animals and what aspects of the subject 

 engaged the attention of workers from time to time ; (4) to 

 trace the influence of contemporary events, public bodies and 

 individuals on the history of anatomical thought. In other 

 words it seemed possible to reduce to geometrical form the 

 activities of the corporate body of anatomical research, and 

 the relative importance from time to time of each country and 

 division of the subject. 



The scheme is not without its difficulties. A chart repre- 



1 Cf. Cole, Mackay Miscellany, 1914, pp. 302-17, 4 Plates. 

 578 



