Gegenbaur.--In Karl Gegenbaur (1826-1903) scientific anatomy reached its highest expression. His work was characterized by broad and masterly analysis of the facts of structure, to which were added the ideas derived from the study of the development of organs. He was endowed with an intensely keen insight, an insight which enabled him to separate from the vast mass of facts the important and essential features, so that they yielded results of great interest and of lasting importance. This gifted anatomist attracted many young men from the United States and from other countries to pursue under his direction the study of comparative anatomy. He died in Heidelberg in 1903, where he had been for many years professor of anatomy in the university. [Illustration: Fig. 48.--Karl Gegenbaur, 1826-1903.] In the group of living German anatomists the names of Fürbringer, Waldeyer, and Wiedersheim can not go unmentioned. E.D. Cope.--In America the greatest comparative anatomist was E.D. Cope (1840-1897), a man of the highest order of attainment, who dealt with the comparative anatomy not only of living forms, but of fossil life, and made contributions of a permanent character to this great science; a man whose title to distinction in the field of comparative anatomy will become clearer to later students with the passage of time. For Cope's portrait see p. 336. Of the successors of Cuvier, we would designate Meckel, Owen, Gegenbaur, and Cope as the greatest. Comparative anatomy is a very rich subject, and when elucidated by embryology, is one of the firm foundations of biology. If we regard anatomy as a science of statics, we recognize that it should be united with physiology, which represents the dynamical side of life. Comparative anatomy and comparative physiology should go hand in hand in the attempt to interpret living forms. Advances in these two subjects embrace nearly all our knowledge of living organisms. It is a cause for congratulation that comparative anatomy has now become experimental, and that gratifying progress is being made along the line of research designated as experimental morphology. Already valuable results have been attained in this field, and the outlook of experimental morphology is most promising. CHAPTER VIII BICHAT AND THE BIRTH OF HISTOLOGY We must recognize Bichat as one of the foremost men in biological history, although his name is not well known to the general public, nor constantly referred to by biologists as that of one of the chief luminaries of their science. In him was combined extraordinary talent with powers of intense and prolonged application; a combination which has always produced notable results in the world. He died at the age of thirty-one, but, within a productive period of not more than seven years, he made observations and published work that created an epoch and made a lasting impression on biological history.