84 THE COSMIC ATOMS. 



pursuits in the school of Alexandria gave him a living 

 reputation and a permanent niche in the temple of 

 iEsculapius. He was ranked as an innovator in his 

 time. The same fate surrounded Vesalius, whose 

 anatomical light shone like an eastern star upon 

 Europe after mediaavalism had passed away. Nor 

 did Harvey and Bichat escape the imputation 

 that befel their predecessors. All of them were, 

 happily for science, innovators on the past. And 

 here it may be well, however cursorily, to notice 

 another innovation upon the old domains, as Goodsir 

 took a very prominent part in the work, and rested no 

 small share of his reputation upon the Anatomy of 

 Tissues or Histology. 



The curiosity of ages as to the cosmic atoms, the 

 corpuscles, and genetic forces of life, came to be solved 

 in the manner that Sir Isaac Newton had antici- 

 pated — namely, by the use of the microscope. In 

 1838, Schleiden and Schwann announced their dis- 

 covery of the primitive organic corpuscle or "cell," 

 and to them every honour is due ; nor is there any 

 desire to detract from their merits in saying the 

 groundwork of their observations was indicated in 

 1825, when, at the jubilee of Johann Friedrich 

 Blumenbach's graduation, celebrated at Gottingen, and 

 echoed throughout " The Fatherland," Purkinje of 

 Breslau announced the germinal vesicle in the ovarian 

 ovum of birds. Purkinje's discovery received further 

 amplification at the hands of Von Baer and E. 

 Wagner, and subsequently in the viviparous animals, 



