86 BICHAT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 



seemed satisfied with Sir C. Bell's discovery of the 

 functions of the nerves, and Dr. Marshall Hall's exposi- 

 tion of an " Excito-motory System " — the extension and 

 application of the views of Whytt and Prochaska to 

 modern theory and practice, as her great achievements 

 in the century. In anatomy she furnished no works 

 equal to those of Beclard, Tiedemann, and Cruveilhier ; 

 while her physiology was much indebted to Blumen- 

 bach, Mliller, and others. The English Cyclopcedia of 

 Anatomy and Physiology, edited by Dr. Todd, was a 

 step in advance, for each fasciculus of the work indi- 

 cated the rise of men worthy of honours in the country 

 of Harvey, Hunter, and Bell. In comparative anatomy 

 England owed to Bichard Owen her high position in 

 Europe ; and though entitled to a fair share of the 

 felicitous observations gracing the field of physiology, 

 she seemed more or less disposed to rest on her oars, 

 apparently reticent as to the belief that each decade 

 should make its own impress on the century's scroll, 

 and that without such impress history becomes nega- 

 tive, letterless, or nil. 



Bichat's Anatomic Generate — a work enough for 

 any man's immortality — had satisfied more than one 

 generation ; but with the advancing spirit of the age, 

 and a better use of optical appliances, arose the Pur- 

 kinjes, Von Baers, Midlers, Browns, Schleidens, Barrys, 

 and Sharpeys, to illumiuate the large field of biology. 

 It was not the tissues, per se, as seen by the naked 

 eye, or in their chemico-physical relations, but their 

 embryonic genesis, elaboration, and metamorphosis, 



