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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1894. 



SIR RICHARD OWEN. 

 The Life of Richard Oiuen. By his grandson, the Rev. 

 Richard Owen, M.A. With the scientific portions 

 revised by C. Davies Sherborn. Also an Essay on 

 Owen's Position in Anatomical Science, by the Right 

 Hon. T. H. Huxley, F.R.S. (London : John Murray, 

 1894.) 



THE life of this well-known and eminent anatomist, 

 written by his grandson, the Rev. Richard Owen, 

 has been based on such a large amount of material that 

 " the writer's chief difficulty has been to compress the 

 biography within reasonable limits." While acknow- 

 ledging that the art of compression is a difficult one, we 

 still must express some disappointment at the way in 

 which it has been carried out in the two volumes of this 

 biography. For over si.xty years Owen filled a more or 

 less conspicuous place in the scientific world ; in a large 

 measure a self-taught anatomist, he at a very rarly age 

 became a teacher of anatomy to others, with a wondrous 

 collection of material at his disposal to illustrate his 

 teaching. In these volumes we do not seem to find 

 enough about his evolution as a man of science, and 

 we could, in some measure, have dispensed with many 

 of the trifling details of his every-day life, which have, 

 if any, but a passing interest. In the following sketch 

 we attempt to show but a phase of Owen's character ; 

 but, in common with all who had any personal know- 

 ledge of him, we do not overlook, nor can we forget, the 

 charm of his domestic and cultured life. 



Richard Owen was the younger son of Richard Owen, 

 of Kulmer Place, Bucks ; he was born at Lancaster on 

 July 20, 1804. His mother was of a Huguenot family 

 of the name of Parrin, who came from Provence at the 

 time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He 

 would seem to have inherited from his father many of 

 his physical characters, his height and sturdy frame ; 

 while from his mother came his fondness for music, and 

 a certain refinement and courtier- like style of manner 

 which were of some value to him in after-life. Ap- 

 parently his mental training began early, for we find his 

 father writing from St. Kitt's to his mother, " that he 

 was glad to know James (the elder brother) and Richard 

 came on so well with their studies, and were so atten- 

 tive," at a date when Richard could not have been more 

 than three years and a half old. When six years old he 

 was sent to the Lancaster Grammar School, to Join his 

 elder brother, a school that will be always associated 

 with the name of Whewell, the great Master of Trinity, 

 Cambridge, who received here his early education. 

 Soon after he had left school, we find him apprenticed 

 to Mr. Leonard Dickson, of Lancaster, surgeon and 

 apothecary, and on his death, in 1822, he was transferred 

 to Surgeon Seed, of the Royal Navy ; and finally, on 

 Mr. Seed being called upon by the Service, he was com- 

 mitted to the care of Mr. J. S. Harrison. Matriculating at 

 'Edinburgh University in October, 1824, he seems to have 

 attended one winter, and possibly a summer, course of 

 lectures. In 1S25 he was in London, attending lectures 

 at St. Bartholomew's Hospital School, and became pro- 

 NO. 1312, VOL 5 1] 



sector for Dr. ."^bernethy. On August 18, 1S26, he was 

 admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, 

 London. 



To the medical student of the present day, compelled 

 to attend a five years' course of lectures and demon- 

 strations, and to pass several examinations, there will 

 seem something enviable in the apparent ease with which 

 Richard Owen obtained his qualification ; there was an 

 incomplete apprenticeship at Lancaster, perhaps a years 

 course of lectures at Edinburgh, and another year, about 

 which we have few details, at St. Bartholomew's, and then 

 he set up as a medical practitioner, and gradually secured 

 a small practice among the lawyers at Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields. To those, however, who try to read under the 

 lines, it will be evident that the abilities and industry of 

 Owen, about which his mother "so proudly writes, must 

 have been of no common order. Up in that old tower at 

 Lancaster — '• Hadrian's Tower, it was called " — after the 

 first spasm of fright, the particulars of which are so 

 graphically told us by the Professor himself, the youth of 

 sixteen must have carried on his anatomical investigations 

 to such a purpose that we find him, on his visit to 

 Edinburgh, not only able to detect the defects of the 

 teaching of anatomy of Prof Monro {terlius), but aole 

 also to attract the notice of John Barclay, and finally, on 

 his visit to London, able to act as prosector to Abernethy . 

 We would have welcomed more information as to how 

 Owen became an anatomist. Was his worthy master at 

 Lancaster, who could learnedly descant on certain patho- 

 logical conditions, an anatomist, or did the "elder 

 fellow pupil " about whom he writes (who was he ?) help 

 him in his studies ? Probably wfe will never know, and 

 yet a knowledge of his doings during these few early 

 years of study would have helped us to an understand- 

 ing of the man. 



In 1827, through the influence of Abernethy, who at 

 the time was President of the College of Surgeons, 

 Owen was appointed Assistant Curator of the College 

 Museum, under William Clift, and he at once pro- 

 ceeded to arrange the collections and to write the 

 descriptive catalogues, the first three parts of which 

 were published in the course of 1830. Before the 

 end of 1S27 he was engaged to be married to .Miss Clift, 

 and after an eight years' courtship they were married in 

 1S35. William Home Clift had died from an accident in 

 September 1832, and Owen's place at the College then 

 became a permanent one. In 1836 he was appointed 

 Hunterian Professor, and on the retirement of Sir Charles 

 Bell (in the early part of 1837) from the Professorship of 

 Anatomy and Physiology in the College, Owen was elected 

 to the vacant chair. For these latter statements we follow 

 the text before us ; but is it not possible that there is 

 some slight confusion here.' Up to about the period 

 ivhen Sir Charles Bell resigned the Professorship of 

 Anatomy, the lectures bearing on the Hunterian col- 

 lections were supposed to have been given in part by the 

 Professor of Anatomy and in part by the Professor of 

 Surgery ; but, by a special arrangement, these lectures, 

 twenty-four in number, were, after 1837, to be delivered 

 by Owen, as Hunterian Professor, and "the awful first 

 lecture " was given on May 2, 1837. 



For the next twenty years of i iwen's life the scene 

 was for the most part laid in Lincoln's Inn Fields. 



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