CARL GEGENBAUK.'' 



By Oscar IIertwig. 



Of the great naturalists who have b}^ their works given to tlie nine- 

 teenth century its characteristic impress, another has been taken from 

 our midst, the recognized leader in the domain of comparative 

 anatomy of the vertebrates, the director of the morphological school 

 which has developed in Germany under his influence. 



Carl Gegenbaur died on June 14, 1903, in Heidelberg, in his 

 seventy-seventh year, having some years previously relinquished his 

 active duties as professoi' of human anatomy on account of continued 

 illness. By his death the world has lost a peculiarly forceful and 

 striking scientific personality. 



At a time when the tendency to specialize was rapidly advancing, 

 when through improved apparatus an almost inconceivable mass of 

 n.ew facts was being added to our knowledge, and when particularly 

 the application of the microscope was completely revolutionizing 

 many pursuits, Gegenbaur was especially interested in its application 

 to anatomical science and in gathering together all known data and 

 fornudating certain general laws concerning the structure of animals. 

 For this purpose he adopted methods of comparison which had 

 already been emplo^^ed by Cuvier, Johannes Aliiller, and others with 

 great success. It was his aim, by a critical correlation of isolated 

 facts, to elevate descriptive anatomy to the importance of a distinct 

 science, which in contradistinction with ph3^siology he was pleased to 

 call morphology. 



Unlike many others, Gegenbaur thi-oughout his life attached more 

 importance to methodical, systematic research than to isolated obser- 

 vations, however significant. The value and importance of the com- 

 parative method is particularly emj:)hahized in the new Morpho- 

 logisches Jahrbuch (Morphological Yearbook), founded by him in 

 1875, " The comparative method," it states, " dej)ends essentially on 

 critical analysis, and constitutes a synthetic process by which the 

 results of critical treatment are brought together. This is to a large 

 extent peculiar to the branch of science founded by him, since the 



a Translated by J. Louis Willige, from Deutsche Medicinische Woelienschrift, 

 Leipzig, XXIX .Jahrgang. No. 20, .July IG, 190.3, pages 525, 526. 



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