THE HIS TORN OF ZOOLOGY 



ages, one of the most notable being Thomas Aquinas i i \ 

 1274). Several hooks on natural history appeared during the 

 middle ages, most of them being based on Aristotle and Pliny. 

 One of the most voluminous was by the Dominican, Albertus 

 Magnus, in the thirteenth century ( 1 193 or 1205-12S0). 



With the renaissance of the sciences in the sixteenth century, 

 several writers of note appear, and the study of animals received 

 a new impetus. The knowledge of anatomy was considerably 

 advanced through the study of the structure of the human body, 

 which was zealously carried on at Padua under Vesalius ( [ 5 14— 

 1564) and his pupils. Two notable works on zoology were 

 published in this century; one was by the Englishman, Wotton 

 (1492-1555), who followed Aristotle pretty closely; his volumi- 

 nous work " On the Distinguishing Characters of Animals " (" l)e 

 Differentiis Animalium"), published in 1552, elaborated the 

 system of Aristotle, to which he added the group of flower 

 animals or zoophytes ; this work was a precursor of the books 

 on the classification of animals, which appeared in the next two 

 centuries. The other zoology was by the Swiss naturalist, ( i 

 ner (1516—1565), whose huge " Historia Animalium," of some 

 4500 folio pages, appeared about the same time as Wotton's 

 book. It is rather encyclopedic, containing a complete bibli 

 raphv of zoology and descriptions of numerous animals with no 

 arrangement except into a few large groups, which were essen- 

 tially those of Aristotle; he still retains such interesting animals 

 as sea serpents, hydras, and dragons, of which illustrations are 

 furnished. 



The seventeenth century is noteworthy for important discov- 

 eries in many fields of science, and this is eminently true oi the 

 biological. The first, and in many ways the most important 

 ever made, was the discovery of the circulation of the blood by 

 Harvey in 1619, the results of which he published in [628 in a 

 pamphlet entitled " Exercitatis anatomica de motu cordis et 

 sanguinis"; this was the real beginning of physiology and of 

 the correct interpretation of anatomy. Harvey also did some 

 valuable embryological work later in the century, studying 

 especially the development of the chick. In 1645, the Italian, 

 Severino (1580-1656), published his " Zootomia democrita 

 which contained many anatomical drawings, intended especially 



2 K 



