THE EARLY DAYS OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. 149 



figures of Aristotle and Galen exhaust the list of the 

 ancient anatomists. Anaxagoras dissected the head of 

 a Ram, Empedocles examined the structure of many 

 animals and discovered the cochlea of the ear, whilst 

 Alcmaeon practised the undesirable combination of 

 erotic poetry and anatomical study. Among the lesser 

 lights of anatomy, however, Democritus occupies a 

 unique position. We know, on the somewhat doubtful 

 authority of the elder Pliny, that he dissected the 

 Chameleon, and " verely made so great reckoning of this 

 beast that hee compiled one entire booke expressely of 

 it and hath anatomized everie severall member thereof." 

 There is also a strong tradition, but a lack of con- 

 vincing evidence, of a meeting between Democritus and 

 Hippocrates. The legend does not gain in credibility by 

 the fact that modifications of it introduce the persons of 

 other actors such as Aristotle and Heraclitus. It is 

 interesting as an " abuse of the privilege of fiction," but 

 also because it is the subject of the engraved title of 

 almost the earliest comprehensive treatise on comparative 

 anatomy we have — the Zootomia Denioeritaea of 

 Severini. The laughing philosopher, having retreated 

 from the world to pursue his studies among the amenities 

 of the neighbouring cemetery, becomes the object of the 

 contempt or pity of the citizens of his native Abdera. 

 They draft a letter, of which the extant copy is a 

 mediaeval forgery attributed to Epictetus, invoking the 

 assistance of the Father of Medicine. The engraving 

 represents in the background the lively distress of the 

 simple Abderitians, whilst in the foreground we observe 

 Democritus, seated in what appears to be a butcher's 

 shop, awaiting the composed and stately figure of the 

 physician. He is asked why he occupies himself in the 

 dissection of the viler creatures, and he replies in 



