490 HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



tions on these subjects eagerly and successfully. 

 And in 1795, he published a Sketch of a Universal 

 Introduction into Comparative Anatomy, beginning 

 miili Osteology ; in which he attempts to establish 

 an " osteological type," to which skeletons of all 

 animals may be referred. I do not pretend that 

 Gothe's anatomical works have had any influence 

 on the progress of the science comparable with that 

 which has been exercised by the labours of pro- 

 fessional anatomists; but the ingenuity and value 

 of the views which they contained was acknow- 

 ledged by the best authorities ; and the clearer 

 introduction and application of the principle of de- 

 veloped and metamorphosed symmetry may be dated 

 from about this time. Gothe declares that, at an 

 early period of these speculations, he was convinced 5 

 that the bony head of beasts is to be derived from 

 six vertebra?. In 1807, Oken published a "Pro- 

 gram" On the Signification of the Bones of the 

 Skull, in which he maintained that these bones are 

 equivalent to four vertebrae; and Meckel, in his 

 Comparative Anatomy, in 1811, also resolved the 

 skull into vertebrae. But Spix, in his elaborate 

 work Cephalogenesis, in 1815, reduced the vertebrae 

 of the head to three. "Oken," he says 6 , "pub- 

 lished opinions merely theoretical, and consequently 

 contrary to those maintained in this work, which are 

 drawn from observation." This resolution of the 

 head into vertebrae is assented to by many of the 

 5 Ziir Morphologic, i. 250. 6 Spix, Cephalogenesis. 



