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Rh intestinal villi, in which he verified the observations of Lieberkühn; and he made many important observations on the corpuscles of the lymph and blood. He finally applied his anatomical discoveries to explain many of the physiological and pathological phenomena of the animal body. Ten years after, John Sheldon, another pupil of Hunter, gave a second history and description of the lymphatics, which, though divested of the charm of novelty, contains many interesting anatomical facts. He also examined the structure of the villi.

Lastly, Cruikshank, in 1786, published a valuable history of the anatomy of the lymphatic system, in which he maintains the accuracy of the Hunterian doctrine, that the lymphatics are the only absorbents; gave a more minute account than heretofore of these vessels, of their coats and valves; and explained the structure of the lymphatic glands. He also injected the villi, and examined them microscopically, verifying most of the observations of Lieberkühn. The origin of the lymphatics he maintains rather by inference than direct demonstration. To these three works, though in other respects very excellent, it is a considerable objection that the anatomical descriptions are much mixed with hypothetical speculation and reasonings on properties, and that the facts are by no means always distinguished from mere matters of opinion. At the same time J. G. Haase published an account of the lymphatics of the skin and intestines, and the plexiform nets of the pelvis.

To complete this sketch of the history of the anatomy of the lymphatic system, it may be added that Paolo Mascagni, who had been engaged from the year 1777 to 1781 in the same train of investigation, first demonstrated to his pupils several curious facts relating to the anatomy of the lymphatic system. When at Florence in 1782 he made several preparations, at the request of Peter Leopold, grand duke of Tuscany; and when the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris announced the anatomy of this system for their prize essay appointed for March 1784, Mascagni resolved on communicating to the public the results of his researches—the first part of his commentary, with four engravings. Anxiety, however, to complete his preparations detained him at Florence till the close of 1785; and from these causes his work did not appear till 1787. These delays, however, unfavourable as they were to his claims of priority to Sheldon and Cruikshank, were on the whole advantageous to the perfection of his work, which is not only the most magnificent, but also the most complete that ever was published on the lymphatics. In his account of the vessels and their valves he confirms some of Hewson’s observations and rectifies others. Their origin he proves by inference much in the same manner as Cruikshank; but he anticipates this author in the account of the glands, and he gives the most minute description of the superficial and deep lymphatics, both in the members and in the internal organs.

General accounts of the nerves had been given with various degrees of accuracy by Willis, Vieussens, Winslow, and the first Monro; and the subject had been much rectified and improved by the indefatigable Haller. The first example of minute descriptive neurography was given in 1748 by John Frederick Meckel, whose account of the fifth pair and of the nerves of the face will long remain a lasting proof of accuracy and research. The same subject was investigated in 1765 by Hirsch and in 1777 by Wrisberg. In 1766 Metzger examined the origin, distribution and termination of the first pair—a point which was afterwards very minutely treated by A. Scarpa in his anatomical disquisitions, published in 1780; and the internal nerves of the nostrils were examined in 1791 by Haase. The optic nerve, which had been studied originally by Varoli, and afterwards by Méry, Duverney, J. F. Henkel, Moeller, Hein and Kaldschmid, was examined with extreme accuracy, with the other nerves of the organ of vision, by Zinn in his elaborate treatise. The phrenic nerves and the oesophageal branches of the vagus were studied by Haase; the phrenic, the abdominal and the pharyngeal nerves, by Wrisberg; those of the heart most minutely by Andersch; and the origins, formation and distribution of the intercostal nerves, by Iwanov, C. G. Ludwig, and Girardi. The labours of these anatomists, however, were eclipsed by the splendid works of Walter (1783) on the nerves of the chest and belly; and those of Scarpa (1794) on the distribution of the eighth pair and splanchnic nerves in general. In minuteness of description and in beauty of engraving these works have not yet been equalled, and will never perhaps be surpassed. About the same time, Scarpa, so distinguished in every branch of anatomical research, investigated the minute structure of the ganglions and plexuses. The anatomy of the brain itself was also studied (1780) with great attention by the second Monro, M. V. G. Malacarne and Vicq d’Azyr.

Lastly, the anatomy of the gravid uterus, which had been originally studied by Albinus, Roederer and Smellie, was again illustrated (1774) most completely by William Hunter, whose engravings will remain a lasting memorial of scientific zeal and artistic talent.

The perfection which anatomical science attained in the last ten years of the 18th and during the 19th century is evinced not only in the improved character of the systems published by anatomists, but in the enormous advance which has taken place in the knowledge of the minute structure of the animal tissues, of the development of the tissues and organs, and of the modifications in form and structure exhibited by various groups of animals.

The first who gave a good modern system was R. B. Sabatier; but his work was speedily eclipsed by the superior merits of the treatises of Sömmerring, Bichat and Portal. The excellent work by Samuel Thomas Sömmerring, originally published in the German language, between the years 1791 and 1796; then in the Latin language, between the years 1794 and 1800; and in a second edition in the German language in 1800 and 1801, maintaining the high character which it first possessed for clear arrangement, accurate description and general precision, was, between the years 1841 and 1844 republished in eight volumes at Leipzig by Th. L. W. Bischoff, F. G. J. Henle, E. H. Huschke, Theile, G. G. Valentin, Vogel, and R. Wagner, with suitable additions, and a large amount of new and accurate information. In this edition Rudolph Wagner gives, in the first division of the first volume, the life, correspondence and literary writings of Sömmerring; and in the second volume the anatomy of the bones and ligaments. The third volume contains the anatomy of the muscles and the vascular system by Theile. G. G. Valentin devotes one volume, the fourth, to the minute anatomy of the nervous system and its parts, as disclosed by careful examination by the microscope; and it must be allowed that the author has been at great pains to present just views of the true anatomy of the brain, the spinal cord, the nervous branches and the ganglia. In the fifth volume, E. H. Huschke of Jena gives the anatomical history of the viscera and the organs of the senses, a department which had been left in some degree incomplete in the original, but for one division of which the author had left useful materials in his large figures already mentioned. In the sixth volume, an entire and complete system of general anatomy, deduced from personal observation and that of other careful observers, the materials being in general new, and in all instances confirmed and rectified is given by F. G. J. Henle. The seventh volume contains the history of the process of development in mammalia and man, by Th. L. W. Bischoff. The eighth volume treats of the pathological anatomy of the human body, by Julius Vogel, but contains only the first division, relating to the generalities of the subject. This, which is probably the most accurate as it is the most elaborate system of anatomical knowledge up to the date of its publication in 1844, was translated into the French language by Jourdan, and published in 1846 under the name of Encyclopédie anatomique. The eighth volume was translated into English in the year 1847.