OWEN 



1804-1892 



" T^\OCTI non solum vivi atque prsesentes studiosus 

 *^ dicendi erudiunt, atque docent ; sed hoc etiam 

 post mortem monimentis literarum assequuntur," wrote 

 Cicero nearly two thousand years ago, and it is very true 

 of Owen and others mentioned in the present volume. 



At the time when Napoleon's invasion of England was 

 completely organized, and only to be overthrown by the 

 power of Nelson, there was born at Lancaster, on 20th 

 July 1804, Richard Owen, destined to be the greatest 

 comparative anatomist and palaeontologist of the nine- 

 teenth century. Although an Englishman on his father's 

 side, Owen's mother was of French extraction, belonging 

 to a Huguenot family named Parrin, and at the age of 

 six he went to the Lancaster Grammar School, but showed 

 no signs during his schooldays of the bent of his future 

 career. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a 

 surgeon and apothecary, and in 1824 proceeded to the 

 Edinburgh University to study medicine ; but the follow- 

 ing year he came to London, where he joined the medical 



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