THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 309 



( l &33)> an d the description of the terrible parasite 

 of man, Trichina spiralis. 



In regard to Taxonomy, Owen made a variety 

 of proposals, the consideration of most of which 

 would involve discussions altogether out of place 

 in this sketch. But there is a notable exception 

 in the case of the { attempt to develop Cuvier's 

 idea of the classification of pachyderms by the 

 number of their toes ' appended to the ' descrip- 

 tion of teeth and portions of jaws of two extinct 

 anthracotherioid quadrupeds (Hyopotamus vecti- 

 anus and H. bovinus)' (1848), as to the high 

 value of which I think all zoologists are agreed. 



In 1837, Owen, without any pause in the long 

 and important series of anatomical investigations 

 which have been mentioned, began those contri- 

 butions to palaeontology which, in after years, per- 

 haps contributed most to his fame with the public. 

 His first work in this department is a memoir, 

 published in the second volume of the Proceedings 

 of the Geological Society, on an extinct mammal 

 discovered in South America by Darwin in 1833, 

 which Owen named Toxodon Platensis. It is 

 worthy of notice that, in the title of this memoir, 

 there follow, after the name of the species, the 

 words ' referable by its dentition to the Rodentia, 

 but with affinities to the Pachydermata and the 

 herbivorous Cetacea ; ' indicating the importance 

 in the mind of the writer of the fact that, 

 like Cuvier's Anoplotherium and P alee ot her ium, 



