Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1295

WYMAN He was a member of the Faculty of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and was chosen president of the American Association for the advancement of Science for the year 1875, but did not assume the duties.

His scientific papers embrace a wide range of studies including human and comparative anatomy, physiology, microscopic anatomy, paleontology, ethnology, and studies of the habits of animals. He also wrote several capital biographical sketches of fellow scientists.

In human anatomy, his most important paper is entitled, "Observations on Crania," published in the "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," for 1868. This contains considerable valuable information. Wyman also made a careful study of the skeleton of a Hottentot; was one of the first to investigate the arrangement of spongy bone in relation to the uses to which the bone is put; compared the spicula of bone in the neck of the human femur with that in the femurs of animals which do not stand upright; gave a careful description of the brain and cranial cavity of Daniel Webster, and important evidence concerning the effect of heat on the structure of bone.

A master in the field of comparative anatomy and paleontology, he achieved some popular, as well as scientific reputation by showing the Hydrarchus Sillimani publicly exhibited as the remains of a gigantic extinct sea-serpent, to be in fact made up of fossil bones belonging to several animals and these animals mammals, not reptiles. He also showed that some, at least, of the so-called paddles exhibited with this skeleton were casts of chambered cells. Wyman made numerous valuable studies of fossil remains including those of a fossil elephant and of a megatherium and of the cranium of a mastodon. In comparative anatomy the most important publication is probably that on the nervous systems of Rana Pipiens published in the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," 1852. In this he gives a full description of the peripheral nervous system of the bull-frog and of the changes undergone during metamorphosis. His theoretical summaries are particularyparticularly [sic] valuable. His paper on the embryology of the skate (Raia Batis) in the "Transactions of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," 1864, is also important. In 1843 he published an account of the anatomy of the chimpanzee and in 1847 the first account of the osteology of the gorilla ("Memoir, Boston Society Natural History"). To him is due the name of this animal which was discovered by Dr. Thomas S. Savage. The name was adopted from a term used by Hanno, the Carthaginian, in describing the wild men found on the coast of Africa, probably one of this species of the Orang. This term was adopted at the suggestion of (q.v.). Gray wrote in 1874: "Nearly all since made known of the gorilla's structure and of the affinities soundly deduced therefrom, has come from our associate's subsequent papers, founded on additional crania brought to him in 1849, by Dr. George A. Perkins, of Salem; on a nearly entire male skeleton of unusual size, received in 1852, from the Rev. William Walker, and now in Wyman's museum; and on a large collection of skins and skeletons placed at his disposal in 1859, by Du Chaillu, along with a young gorilla in spirits, which he dissected. It is in the account of this dissection that Prof. Wyman brings out the curious fact that the skull of the young gorilla and chimpanzee bears closer resemblance to the adult than to the infantile human cranium."

In the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, for 1866, he published a valuable paper on the "Symmetry and Homology in Limbs." In this he took the standpoint that the limbs of each side are reversely symmetrical. In a paper "Notes on the Cells of the Bee," ("Proceedings of the American Academy for January," 1866), he shows clearly that the structure of the honeycomb is far from being ideally perfect. Of the development of organisms in boiled water, enclosed in hermetically sealed vessels and supplied with pure air, he reported in the American Journal of Science and Arts, for 1862, the second in the same journal for 1867; in the first paper showing infusoria could develop even after prolonged boiling of the water and when air admitted came through red-hot tubes. In the second paper he showed that when the boiling was carried up to five hours no organisms develop.

Wyman's studies of Unusual Methods of Gestation in certain Fishes (Silliman's Journal, 1859), were likewise valuable. He gave a careful account of the development of Surinam toads in the skin of the back of their mother, and showed that the developing ovum is nourished at the expense of materials derived from the parent.

His interpretations according to Wilder, were either teleological or purely