488 HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



London, whose Anatomy of Plants we have al- 

 ready noticed. 



But comparative anatomy, which had been culti- 

 vated with ardour to the end of the seventeenth 

 century, was, in some measure, neglected during 

 the first two-thirds of*the eighteenth. The progress 

 of botany was, Cuvier sagaciously suggests 2 , one 

 cause of this; for that science had made its ad- 

 vances by confining itself to external characters, 

 and rejecting anatomy; and though Linnaeus acknow- 

 ledged the dependence of zoology upon anatomy 3 

 so far as to make the number of teeth his charac- 

 ters, even this was felt, in his method, as a bold 

 step. But his influence was soon opposed by that 

 of Buffon, Daubenton, and Pallas; who again brought 

 into view the importance of comparative anatomy 

 in zoology; at the same time that Haller proved 

 how much might be learnt from it in physiology. 

 John Hunter, in England, the two Munros in Scot- 

 land, Camper in Holland, and Vicq d'Azyr in 

 France, were the first to follow the path thus pointed 

 out. Camper threw the glance of genius on a host 

 of interesting objects, but almost all that he pro- 

 duced was a number of sketches; Vicq d'Azyr, 

 more assiduous, was stopt in the midst of a most 

 brilliant career by a premature death. 



Such is Cuvier's outline of the earlier history of 

 comparative anatomy. We shall not go into detail 

 upon this subject; but we may observe that such 

 2 Cuv. Hist. Sc. Not. i. 301. 3 Ib. 



