CHAPTER VII 



CUVIER AND THE RISE OF COMPARATIVE 

 , ANATOMY 



After observers like Linmcus and his followers had at- 

 tained a knowledge of the externals, it was natural that men 

 should turn their attention to the organization or internal 

 structure of living beings, and when the latter kind of inv< 

 tigation became broadly comparative, it blossomed into com- 

 parative anatomy. The materials out of which the science 

 of comparative anatomy was constructed had been long 

 accumulating before the advent of Cuvier, but the mass of 

 details had not been organized into a compact science. 



As indicated in previous chapters, there had been an in- 

 creasing number of studies upon the structure of organisms, 

 both plant and animal, and there had resulted some note- 

 worthy monographs. All this work, however, was mainly 

 descriptive, and not comparative. Xow and then, the com- 

 paring tendency had been shown in isolated writings such as 

 those of Harvey, Malpighi, and others. As early as 1555, 

 Bclon had compared the skeleton of the bird with that of the 

 human body "in the same posture and as nearly as possible 

 bone for bone " ; but this was merely a faint foreshadowing 

 of what was to be done later in comparing the systems of the 

 more important organs. 



We must keep in mind that the study of anatomy em- 

 braces not merelv the bonv framework of animals, but also 

 the muscles, the nervous system, the sense organs, and all the 

 Mher structures of both animals and plants. In the rise of 



141 



