Sir Richard Owen : his life and works / by C.W.G. Rohrer.

  • Rohrer, C. W. G. (Caleb Wyand Geeting), 1873-1952
Date:
[1911]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sir Richard Owen : his life and works / by C.W.G. Rohrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    scripts. These two volumes of Hunter’s unpublished manu- [137] scripts, edited by Owen, appeared in 1860, and are entitled “ John Hunter’s Essays and MSS.” These volumes contain essays on natural history, psychology and kindred topics. Professor Owen was one of the pioneers in public health work and in sanitation. He was chairman of the original Health of Towns’ Commission. Sir Henry Littlejohn, the man who made the first sanitary survey of the city of London, mentioned by Dr. Osier in his recent magazine article entitled “ Man’s Kedemption of Man,” served with Professor Owen on this commission. Professor Owen was also a member of the Commission of Sewers and of the Royal Commission on Smithfield Market and the Meat Supply of London. Contributions to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. Owen’s contributions to comparative anatomy represent his most exhaustive work. These are largely embodied in his three-volume work, “ On the Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates,” and his one-volume work, “ On the Anatomy and Physiology of Invertebrates.” Owen was the leading anatomist of the age, and the leading vertebrate anatomist of all time. An observation which Owen made on the generative organs in the muridas or mouse and rat family is of interest. This was mentioned in his Hunterian lectures for 1840. The sub- ject of the lectures for this year was “ The Comparative Anat- omy of the Generative Organs and the Development of the Ovum and Foetus in the Different Classes of Animals.” In these lectures Professor Owen describes for the first time, as separate and distinct glands, the “ small glands with a gran- ulated exterior ” situated adjacent to the seminal vesicles in the rat and mouse. Previous investigators had described these glandular structures as part of the prostate gland. Owen also rendered great service to comparative anatomy by pointing out the distinction between homology or struc- tural resemblance and analogy or functional resemblance.
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