RISE OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY 143 
Zootomia Democrite. The title was derived from the Roman 
naturalist Democritus, and the date of its publication, 1645, 
places the treatise earlier than the works of Malpighi, Leeu- 
wenhoek, and Swammerdam. The book is illustrated by 
numerous coarse woodcuts, showing the internal organs of 
fishes, birds, and some mammals. There are also a few 
illustrations of stages in the development of these animals. 
The comparisons were superficial and incidental; neverthe- 
less, as the first attempt, after the revival of anatomy, to 
make the subject comparative, it has some especial interest. 
Severinus (Fig. 37) should be recognized as beginning the 
line of comparative anatomists which led up to Cuvier. 
Forerunners of Cuvier.—Anatomical studies began to 
take on broad features with the work of Camper, John 
Hunter, and Vicq d’Azyr. These three men paved the way 
for Cuvier, but it must be said of the two former that their 
comparisons were limited and unsystematic. 
Camper, whose portrait is shown in Fig. 38, was born in 
Leyden, in 1722. He was a versatile man, having a taste 
for drawing, painting, and sculpture, as well as for scientific 
studies. He received his scientific training under Boerhaave 
and other eminent men in Leyden, and became a professor 
and, later, rector in the University of Groningen. Possessing 
an ample fortune, and also having married a rich wife, he 
was in position to foilow his own tastes. He travelled exten- 
sively and gathered a large collection of skeletons. He 
showed considerable talent as an anatomist, and he made 
several discoveries, which, however, he did not develop, but 
left to others. Perhaps the possession of riches was one of 
his limitations; at any rate, he lacked fixity of purpose. 
Among his discoveries may be mentioned the semicircu- 
lar canals in the ear of fishes, the fact that the bones of flying 
birds are permeated by air, the determination of some fossil 
bones, with the suggestion that they belonged to extinct forms. 
