The Last Link: Our Present Knowledge of the Descent of ManHaeckel, Ernst
Science
The Last Link: Our Present Knowledge of the Descent of Man
Haeckel, Ernst
Human beings -- Origin
In 1829 Baer discovered the human egg, and later the chorda dorsalis.
In an address delivered in 1834, entitled 'The Most Universal Law
of Nature in all Development,' he explained that only from a most
superficial point of view can the various species be looked upon as
permanent and immutable types; that, on the contrary, they can be
nothing but passing stages, or series of stages, of development, which
have been evolved by transformation out of common ancestral forms.
JOHANNES MUELLER, born at Coblenz in 1801, established himself
as _Privat-docent_ at Bonn, where in 1830 he became Professor of
Physiology. In 1833 he accepted the Chair of Anatomy and Physiology at
Berlin, where he died in 1858.
He was one of the most distinguished physiologists and comparative
anatomists. By summarizing the labours and discoveries already made in
the field of physiology, by reducing them to order, and abstracting the
general principles, he became the founder of modern physiology. But
he was scarcely less distinguished by his researches in comparative
anatomy. His 'Vergleichende Anatomie der Myxinoiden,' in _Abhandlungen
der Berliner Akademie_, 1835-45, and 'Ueber die Grenzen der Ganoiden'
(_ibid._, 1846), are standard works of lasting value.
Mueller exercised a stimulative influence as a teacher. Many well-known
men--such as Helmholtz, Gegenbaur, Bruecke the physiologist, Guenther
the zoologist, Virchow the pathologist, Koelliker and Haeckel--have
been his pupils.
RUDOLPH VIRCHOW was born in 1821 at Schievelbein, a small
town in Eastern Pomerania. He studied medicine in Berlin as a pupil
of Johannes Mueller, and went in 1849 to Würzburg, where, under the
influence of Koelliker, and Leydig the pathologist, he laid the
foundation of an entirely new branch of medical science--that of
'cellular pathology.' Since 1856 he has filled the principal Chair of
Pathology at Berlin. In 1892 he received the Copley medal of the Royal
Society.
'His contributions to the study of morbid anatomy have thrown light
upon the diseases of every part of the body; but the broad and
philosophical view he has taken of the processes of pathology has
done more than his most brilliant observations to make the science of
disease.
'In pathology, strictly so called, his two great achievements--the
detection of the cellular activity which lies at the bottom of
all morbid as well as normal physiological processes, and the
classification of the important group of new growths on a natural
histological basis--have each of them not only made an epoch in
medicine, but have also been the occasion of fresh extension of science
by other labourers' (Proc. Royal Soc., 1892).
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