238 EARLY STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY 



earthworm the locomotive function of the setse is ex- 

 plained, and the reproductive organs are figured and 

 discussed ; it was not discovered, however, that the 

 earthworm is hermaphrodite.^ The typhlosole and the 

 dorsal pores are mentioned. 



King, afterwards Sir Edmund (1629-1709), took a chief 

 part in the celebrated operation of transfusing the blood 

 of a sheep into a man (1667) ; he is also remembered 

 as the physician who bled Charles II with a penknife at 

 the outset of his fatal illness. There is much to say 

 about Willis, both as an anatomist and as a physician, 

 but it is not for a naturalist to say it. 



Edward Tyson (1650-1708), a London physician, made 

 careful studies of the structure of a chimpanzee (which 

 he calls an orang-outang,^ an opossum, a porpoise and a 

 rattlesnake. His account of the chimpanzee was pub- 

 lished separately ; the rest are to be found in the 

 Philosophical Transactions, where also he figured, but 

 without description, the "cochineel-fly." It was some- 

 thing to recognise, as early as 1685, that cochineal was 

 an insect and not a fruit {supra, p. 208). Tyson figures 

 also a Taenia, with its head and hooks. He has no 

 doubt that there is a transition from minerals through 

 plants and animals to man,^ but this was not a con- 

 clusion drawn from his own observation and reflection. 

 Such a transition had been a common theme of philoso- 

 phers, occasionally of anatomists and naturalists also, 

 ever since the time of Aristotle. 



An Essay on Comparative Anatomy was published 

 anonymously in 1744 by Alexander Munro primus, the 



J^A general statement of the fact, without precise details, was published 

 by Redi in 1684. See also Poupart on the reproduction of the earthworm 

 [supra, p. 236). 



' Orang-Outang, or the Anatomy of a Pygmie. 4to. Lond. 1699. 



'Epistle Dedicatory to Anatomy of a Pygmie. 



