Gegenbaur was born in 1826, and a few weeks ago his 70th birthday was celebrated by his pupils (who comprise almost all the leading comparative anatomists of Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia) by the presentation to him of a “ Festschrift ” in three volumes. Gegenbaur is everywhere recognised as the anatomist who has laid the foundations of modern comparative anatomy on the lines of the theory of descent, and has to a very large extent raised the building by his own work. His ‘ Grundziige der vergleichenden Anatomie ’ was first published in 1859, when he was 33 years old. In the second edition, published in 1870, he remodelled the whole work, making the theory of descent the guiding principle of his treatment of the subject. Since then he has produced a somewhat condensed edition of the same work under the title of ‘ Grundriss ’ (translated into English and French), and now, in his 71st year, he is about to publish what will probably be the last edition of this masterly treatise, revising the whole mass of facts and speculations accumulated through his own unceasing industry and the researches of his numerous pupils during the past quarter of a century.
Gegenbaur may be considered as occupying a position in morphology parallel to that occupied by Ludwig in Physiology. Both were pupils of Jahannes Muller, and have provided Europe with a body of teachers and investigators, carrying forward in a third generation the methods and aims of the great Berlin professor. Gegenbaur’s first independent contribution to science was published in 1853. It was the outcome of a sojourn at Messina in 1852, in company with two other pupils of Johannes Muller, namely Albert Kolliker (still professor in Wurzburg) and Heinrich Muller, who died not long afterwards. These young morphologists published the results of their researches in common. Gegenbaur wrote on Medusae, on the development of Echinoderms, and on Pteropod larvae. A long list of papers on the structure and development of Hydrozoa, Mollusca, and various invertebrata followed this first publication. The greatest interest, however, was excited among anatomists by his researches on the vertebrate skeleton (commenced already in 1849 with a research, in common with Friedreich, on the skull of axolotl). In a series of beautifully illustrated memoirs he dealt with aud added immensely to our knowledge of the vertebral column, the skull, and the limbgirdles and limbs of Vertebrata, basing his theoretical views as to the gradual evolution of these structures in. the ascending series of vertebrate forms upon the study of the cartilaginous skeleton of Elasmobranch fishes, and on the embryological characters of the cartilaginous skeleton and its gradual replacement by bone in higher forms. His method and point of view were essentially similar to those of Huxley, who independently and contemporaneously was
engaged on the same line of work.
