THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 305 



by anatomical and palaeontological monography; 

 there was the path of philosophical anatomy, 

 opened up by Vicq d'Azyr, Goethe, Geoffroy St. 

 Hilaire, Oken, and followed out in the elaborate 

 works of Spix and Carus on the skeleton, with 

 results acutely checked and criticised by Cuvier ; 

 there was the study of individual development in 

 its dawn, but with its great future already clearly 

 indicated by Von Baer ; there was the question of 

 the development of animals and plants in general, 

 or what is now commonly understood by the term 

 evolution, waiting to be rescued from the region of 

 speculation, to which it had been relegated for 

 want of positive evidence one way or the other, 

 and a good deal more damaged by its supporters 

 than by its opponents. 



It was at this time, namely in 1830, that Owen 

 turned from practical medicine to natural science ; 

 and threw himself into the first-mentioned of these 

 paths of exploration, with an energy which re- 

 minds one of Geoffroy and Cuvier, when, a little 

 younger, they set out on their remarkable careers. 

 Owen's first recorded publication is an account of 

 an aneurism. The second work in which he en- 

 gaged was a catalogue of specimens in the museum 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons. But, in the 

 next year (1831), no fewer than eight papers on 

 the anatomy of various mammals, birds, and 

 reptiles which had died in the Zoological Gardens 



VOL. II. X 



