who distinguishes by name the restiform processes, or the posterior pyramidal eminences. He recognized the figure of the four eminences in the human subject; he remarked the mammillary bodies; and he discovered the sinus which passes under his name.
Raymond Vieussens, by the publication of his great work on neurography in 1684, threw new light on the configuration and structure of the brain, the spinal cord and the nerves; and gave a description of the arrangement and distribution of the latter more precise than heretofore. Of the Vieussens.formation and connexions of the sympathetic nerve especially he gave views which have been generally adopted by subsequent anatomists. His new arrangement of the vessels, published in 1705, contains several curious opinions. His observations on the structure of the heart, published in 1706, and enlarged in 1715, exhibit the first correct views of the intimate structure of an organ which afterwards was most fully developed by the labours of G. M. Lancisi and J. B. Senac.
To the same period (1685–1697) belong the rival publications of G. Bidloo[1] and William Cowper, the latter of whom, however, stained a reputation otherwise good by publishing as his own the engravings of the former. Cowper further distinguished himself by a minute account of the urethral glands, already known to Columbus and Méry; by a good description of the intestinal glands, discovered by Brunner and Peyer; and by demonstrating the communication of the arteries and veins of the mesentery.
The anatomical genius of Italy, which had slumbered since the death of Malpighi, was destined once more to revive in Lancisi, A. M. Valsalva, and his illustrious pupils G. D. Santorini and J. B. Morgagni. Valsalva especially distinguished himself by his description of the structure of the ear, which, in possessing still greater precision and minuteness than that of Duverney, is valuable in setting the example of rendering anatomy altogether Santorini. a science of description. Santorini, who was professor at Venice, was no unworthy friend of Valsalva and Morgagni. His anatomical observations, which relate to the muscles of the face, the brain and several of the nerves, the ducts of the lachrymal gland, the nose and its cavities, the larynx, the viscera of the chest and belly, and the organs of generation in the two sexes, furnish beautiful models of essays, distinguished for perspicuity, precision and novelty, above anything which had then appeared. These observations, indeed, which bear the impress of accurate observation and clear conception, may be safely compared with any anatomical writings which have appeared since. Those on the brain are particularly interesting. Morgagni. Morgagni, though chiefly known as a pathological anatomist, did not neglect the healthy structure. His Adversaria, which appeared between 1706 and 1719, and his Epistles, published in 1728, contain a series of observations to rectify the mistakes of previous anatomists, and to determine the characters of the healthy structure of many parts of the human body. Many parts he describes anew, and indicates facts not previously observed. All his remarks show how well he knew what true anatomical description ought to be. In this respect, indeed, the three anatomists now mentioned may be said to have anticipated their contemporaries nearly a century; for, while other authors were satisfied with giving loose and inaccurate or meagre notices of parts, with much fanciful supposition, Valsalva, Santorini and Morgagni laboured to determine with precision the anatomical characters of the parts which they describe.
The same character is due to J. B. Winslow (1669–1760), a native of Denmark, but, as pupil and successor of Duverney, as well as a convert to Catholicism, naturalized in France, and finally professor of anatomy at the Royal Gardens. His exposition of the structure of the human body is distinguished Winslow.for being not only the first treatise of descriptive anatomy, divested of physiological details and hypothetical explanations foreign to the subject, but for being a close description derived from actual objects, without reference to the writings of previous anatomists. About the same time W. Cheselden in London, the first Alexander Monro in Edinburgh, and B. S. Albinus in Leiden, contributed by their several treatises to render anatomy still more precise as a descriptive science. The Osteographia of the first-mentioned was of much use in directing attention to the study of the skeleton and the morbid changes to which it is liable. This work, however, magnificent as it was, was excelled by that of Albinus, who in 1747 published engravings, executed Albinus. by Jan Wandelaar (1691–1759), of the bones and muscles, which had never been surpassed in accuracy of outline or beauty of execution. The several labours of Albinus, indeed, constitute an important era in the history of the science. He was the first who classified and exhibited the muscles in a proper arrangement, and applied to them a nomenclature which is still retained by the consent of the best anatomists. He gives a luminous account of the arteries and veins of the intestines represents with singular fidelity and beauty the bones of the foetus, inquires into the structure of the skin and the cause of its colour in different races; represents the changes incident to the womb in different periods of pregnancy, and describes the relations of the thoracic duct and the vena azygos with the contiguous parts. Besides these large and magnificent works, illustrated by the most beautiful engravings, six books of Academical Annotations were the fruits of his long and assiduous cultivation of anatomy. These contain valuable remarks on the second structure and morbid deviations of numerous parts of the human body.
Albinus found a worthy successor in his pupil Albert von Haller (1708–1777), who, with a mind imbued with every department of literature and science, directed his chief attention, nevertheless, to the cultivation of anatomical and physiological knowledge. Having undertaken at an early age Haller.(twenty-one) to illustrate, with commentaries, the physiological prelections of his preceptor H. Boerhaave, he devoted himself assiduously to the perusal of every work which could tend to facilitate his purpose; and, as he found numerous erroneous or imperfect statements, and many deficiencies to supply, he undertook an extensive course of dissection of human and animal bodies to obtain the requisite information. During the seventeen years he was professor at Göttingen, he dissected 400 bodies, and inspected their organs with the utmost care. The result of these assiduous labours appeared at intervals in the form of dissertations by himself, or under the name of some one of his pupils, finally published in a collected shape between 1746 and 1751 (Disputationes Anatomicae Selectiores), and in eight numbers of most accurate and beautiful engravings, representing the most important parts of the human body, e.g. the diaphragm, the uterus, ovaries and vagina, the arteries of the different regions and organs, with learned and critical explanatory observations. He verified the observations that in the foetus the testicles lie in the abdomen, and showed that their descent into the scrotum may be complicated with the formation of congenital hernia. Some years after, when he had retired from his academical duties at Göttingen, he published between 1757 and 1765 the large and elaborate work which, with singular modesty, he styled Elements of Physiology. This work, though professedly devoted to physiology, rendered, nevertheless, the most essentially services to anatomy. Haller, drawing an accurate line of distinction between the two, gave the most clear, precise and complete descriptions of the situation, position, figure, component parts and minute structure of the different organs and their appendages. The results of previous and coeval inquiry, obtained by extensive reading, he sedulously verified by personal observation; and though he never rejected facts stated on credible authorities, he in all cases laboured to ascertain their real value by experiment. The anatomical descriptions are on this account not only the most valuable part of his work, but the most valuable that had then or for a long time after appeared. It is painful, nevertheless, to think that the very form in which this work is composed, with copious and scrupulous reference to authorities, made it be regarded as a compilation only; and that the author was compelled to show, by a list of his personal researches,
- ↑ Bidloo was a Dutch anatomist and Cowper a London surgeon.
