The student's compendium of comparative anatomy / by P. Evers.

  • Evers, P.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The student's compendium of comparative anatomy / by P. Evers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    or whether we make use of several, provided that our object of con- veying or acquiring a knowledge of the comparative structure of animal bodies be attained. This must be my excuse for appearing in some places to have followed the arrangement of Cuvier, and in others, that of Dr. Grant, both having their excellences, and their authors holding the highest place as authorities on the subject. Cuvier's and Grant's classifications are therefore subjoined, ac- companied by familiar illustrations of each, to lead the student at one glance to the objects which each subdivision embraces. The examples appended to Grant's classification have been added by myself, whilst those of Cuvier have been taken from Dr. Houston's Descriptive Catalogue of the Preparations in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, with a kw additional exam- ples from Roget's Bridgewater Treatise. It might appear an omission not to make some allusion to the arrangement of the animal kingdom adopted by the immortal Lin- naeus, but. the researches of later zoologists have proved it so defec- tive, that it is not followed by any writer or teacher of the present day, and needs therefore but a cursory allusion. Suffice it to state that he divided the whole animal kingdom into six classes, Mam- malia, Aves, Reptilia, Pisces, Insecta, Vermes, founding his classi- fication mainly on the peculiarities afforded by the respiratory and sanguineous systems. OUTLINE OF CUVIER'S CLASSIFICATION OF ANIMALS. FOUR GREAT DIVISIONS. 1. Vertebrata. 3. Articdlata. 2. Mollosca. 4. Radiata. VERTEBRATA. Characters.—Internal skeleton—brain and spinal marrow in separate cavi- ties—red blood and muscular heart—mouth with horizontal jaws—five organs of sense—never more than four limbs—separate sexes. MOLLUSCA. Ch.— No skeleton—muscles all attached to external skin—nervous system situated in the visceral cavity and composed of separate masses joined by nervous filaments—taste, sight, or as in one instance, hearing, the only senses —organs of circulation, respiration, and digestion very perfect. ARTICULATA. Ch.—No skeleton—two long nervous chords with ganglia at intervals- have usually taste and sight—divided in jointed rings, soft or hard, to inside of which muscles attached—sometimes lateral limbs, sometimes none—iaws when present always lateral.