188 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST.- [VoL. XXXIII. 
observations undreamt of, in their minuteness, by the masters 
of fifty years ago, and wonderfully more perfect than those 
possible even. fifteen years ago. How then, even from the 
observational side, can anatomy be a completed science? 
But now, leaving this side of the story, let us examine the 
difference between the higher intellectual side of anatomy as 
it is to-day and what it was in the past. 
It is interesting to note the impartiality of the intellectual 
stagnation of the Middle Ages. The neglect of Aristotle, so 
marked in philosophy, is paralleled by a similar neglect in the 
department of Natural History; Pliny, with his fabulous tales 
and uncritical compilations, being the great authority. In 
anatomy the condition was largely the same. Original obser- 
vation was almost neglected, utmost reliance being placed upon 
the dicta of Galen and any attempt to criticise his statements 
regarded as a heresy. When, accordingly, Vesalius, in the 
first half of the sixteenth century, disregarding the dictates of 
antiquity and entering upon a course of investigation for him- 
self, pointed out that the facts which Galen set forth as appli- 
cable to the human body, and which were in reality founded 
largely upon observations made chiefly in dogs and monkeys, 
were in many particulars erroneous, he encountered a storm 
of derision and obloquy. The correctness of his observations 
had to be recognized however, though with great unwillingness ; 
but even then his opponents, notably his former teacher, Syl- 
vius, maintained the correctness of Galen’s descriptions and 
endeavored to explain away discrepancies by asserting that 
the structure of the human body must have changed since 
Galen’s time. Vesalius had pointed out that the bones of the 
leg are not curved, as Galen had asserted. ‘Granted,’ cried his 
opponents, “but they were curved in Galen’s time, and their 
straightness now is due to the substitution of close-fitting 
garments for the flowing robes of earlier times.” 
On the death of Vesalius in 1564, the influence of his 
opponents produced a revival of Galenism, but the leaven had 
begun to work and the zeal of Vesalius had marked an epoch 
in anatomy. Careful observation and description became more 
and more the order of the day, and led in 1619 to the dis- 
