Page:EB1911 - Volume 01.djvu/986

HISTORY] mode of growth and union; his observations on the spleen, the glans penis, the clitoris, and the womb impregnated and unimpregnated, were but a limited part of his anatomical labours. He studied the minute structure of the brain; he demonstrated the organization of the choroid plexus; he described the state of the hair when affected with Polish plait; he proved the vascular structure of the teeth; he injected the dura mater, the pleura, the pericardium and peritoneum; he unfolded the minute structure of the conglomerate glands; he investigated that of the synovial apparatus placed in the interior of the joints; and he discovered several curious particulars relating to the lacteals, the lymphatics and the lymphatic glands.

Meanwhile, H. Meibomius rediscovered (1670) the palpebral glands, which were known to Casserius; Swammerdam studied the action of the lungs, described the structure of the human uterus, and made numerous valuable observations on the coeca and pancreatoid organs of fishes; and Th. Kerckring laid the foundation of a knowledge of the process of ossification. John Conrad Brunner, in the course of experiments on the pancreas, discovered (1687) the glands of the duodenum named after him, and J. Conrad Peyer (1677–1681) described the solitary and agminated glands of the intestinal canal. Leonard Tassin, distinguished for original observation, rendered the anatomical history of the brain more accurate than heretofore, and gave particular accounts of the intestinal tube, the pancreatic duct and the hepatic ligaments (1678).

That France might not be without participation in the glory of advancing the progress of anatomical knowledge, the names of Joseph Guichard Duverney and Vieussens are commemorated with distinction. Duverney, born in 1648, and first introduced into public life in 1676 in the Royal Academy of Sciences, decorated with the honorary title of professor of anatomy to the dauphin, and appointed in 1679 professor at the Jardin Royal, distinguished himself by the first accurate account of the organ of hearing, and by his dissections of several animals at the academy supplied valuable materials for the anatomical details of the natural history of animals published by that learned body. He appears to have been the first who demonstrated the fact that the cerebral sinuses open into the jugular veins, and to have been aware that the former receives the veins of the brain and are the venous receptacles of the organ. He understood the cerebral cavities and their mode of communication; distinguishes the posterior pillars of the vault from the pedes hippocampi; recognizes the two plates of the septum lucidum; and, what is still more remarkable, he first indicates distinctly the discussation of the anterior pyramids of the medulla oblongata—a fact afterwards verified by the researches of Mistichelli, F. P. du Petit and G. D. Santorini. He studied the ganglions attentively, and gives the first distinct account of the formation, connexions and distribution of the intercostal nerves. It is interesting to remark that his statement that the veins or sinuses of the spinal cord terminate in the vena azygos was verified by the subsequent researches of G. Dupuytren (1777–1835) and G. Breschet (1784–1845), which showed that the vertebral veins communicate by means of the intercostal and superior lumbar veins with the azygos and hemi-azygos. His account of the structure of bones and of the progress of ossification is valuable. He recognized the vascular structure of the spleen, and described the excretory ducts of the prostate gland, the verumontanum, and the ante-prostates.

One of the circumstances which at this time tended considerably to the improvement of anatomical science was the attention with which Comparative Anatomy was beginning to be cultivated. In ancient times, and at the revival of letters, the dissection of the lower animals was substituted for that of the human body; and the descriptions of the organs of the latter were too often derived from the former. The obloquy and contempt in which this abuse involved the study of animal anatomy caused it to be neglected, or pursued with indifference, for more than two centuries, during which anatomists confined their descriptions, at least very much, to the parts of the human body. At this period, however, the prejudice against Comparative Anatomy began to subside; and animal dissection, though not substituted for that of the human body, was employed, as it ought always to have been, to illustrate obscurities, to determine doubts and to explain difficulties, and, in short, to enlarge and rectify the knowledge of the structure of animal bodies generally.

For this revolution in its favour, Comparative Anatomy was in a great measure indebted to the learned societies which were established about this time in the different countries of Europe. Among these, the Royal Society of London, embodied by charter by Charles II. in 1662, and the Academy of Sciences of Paris, founded in 1666 by J. B. Colbert, are undoubtedly entitled to the first rank. Though later in establishment, the latter institution was distinguished by making the first great efforts in favour of Comparative Anatomy; and Claude Perrault, Pecquet, Duverney and Jean Méry, by the dissections of rare animals obtained from the royal menagerie, speedily supplied valuable materials for the anatomical naturalist. In England, Nehemiah Grew, Edward Tyson and Samuel Collins cultivated the same department with diligence and success. Grew has left an interesting account of the anatomical peculiarities of the intestinal canal in various animals; Tyson, in the dissection of a porpoise, an opossum and an orang outang, adduces some valuable illustrations of the comparative differences between the structure of the human body and that of the lower animals; Collins has the merit of conceiving, and executing on an enlarged plan, a comprehensive system, embodying all the information then extant (1685). With the aid of Tyson and his own researches, which were both extensive and accurate, he composed a system of anatomical knowledge in which he not only gives ample and accurate descriptions of the structure of the human body, and the various morbid changes to which the organs are liable, but illustrates the whole by accurate and interesting sketches of the peculiarities of the lower animals. The matter of this work is so excellent that it can only be ascribed to ignorance that it has received so little attention. Though regarded as a compilation, and though indeed much of the human anatomy is derived from Vesalius, it has the advantage of the works published on the continent at that time, that it embodies most of the valuable facts derived from Malpighi, Willis and Vieussens. The Comparative Anatomy is almost all original, the result of personal research and dissection; and the pathological observations, though occasionally tinged with the spirit of the times, show the author to have been endowed with the powers of observation and judicious reflexion in no ordinary degree.

About this time also we recognize the first attempts to study the minute constitution of the tissues, by the combination of the microscope and the effects of chemical agents. Bone furnished the first instance in which this method was put in use; and though Gagliardi, who undertook the inquiry, had fallen into some mistakes which it required the observation of Malpighi to rectify, this did not deter Clopton Havers and Nesbitt, in England, and Courtial, H. L. Duhamel-Dumonceau and Delasone, and afterwards Herissant, in France, from resuming the same train of investigation. The mistakes into which these anatomists fell belong to the imperfect method of inquiry. The facts which they ascertained have been verified by recent experiment, and constitute no unessential part of our knowledge of the structure of bone.

Ten years after the publication of the work of Collins, Ridley, another English anatomist, distinguished himself by a monograph (1695) on the brain, which, though not free from errors, contains, nevertheless, some valuable observations. Ridley is the first