Richard Owen

Its beginnings

Owen was born with Lancaster. It receives its education at the school of this city. In 1820 he is apprentice at a Chirurgie N and local Apothicaire, in 1824 he becomes student in Médecine with the Université of Edinburgh. It leaves it the following year and finishes its studies with London where it is influenced by John Abernethy.

It considers the usual medical career but its inclination pushes it towards research in Anatomie and Abernethy pushes it to off accept the station of assistant of the conservative of the museum of the Royal College Suckers - royal Collège of surgery , William Clift. This pleasant occupation pushes it to give up the medical practice and to launch out in research. It prepares a series of catalogs of the museum; during this work it acquires knowledge in comparative anatomy which will be useful for him for the remainder of its career, especially for the study of Fossile S. In 1836 he becomes professor and in 1849 he succeeds Clift like conservative of the museum. It occupies this station until in 1856 where it becomes superintendant department of natural history of the British Museum. Its reorganization of this department will lead to its separation of British Museum to create the Natural History Museum. It remains at this station until in 1884.

The end of its career is splashed by several charges to monopolize the work of others without crediting the authors correctly, to even want to adapt their work. This culminates in 1844 when he claims the credit of an article on the Belemnite S which had already been presented a few years before to the Geological Society off London by Chaning Pearce. Consequently it was dislocated of its functions in Geological Society and the Royal Society.

Invertebrate S

While it catalogs the collection of the Royal College off Suckers , Owen is not confined with the preparations already carried out but seizes also each occasion to make new dissections. It is helped there by the privilege to be able to examine off the dead specimens of the Zoological Society London, Société of zoology of London . When this company starts to publish scientific articles, its contributions are the independent source in Anatomie. However its first publication is “ Memoir one the Pearly Nautilus , memory on Nautilus pearly in 1832 which is quickly regarded as traditional. As from this moment it continues its work in comparative anatomy and Zoologie during nearly fifty years. It describes Spongiaires (1841, 1857), discovers a parasite of the human muscle Trichinella spiralis (1835, to also see James Paget). He studies in detail of the Brachiopode S and sets up a classification adopted for one long period. He describes Mollusque S such as the Spirula in 1850 and others alive Céphalopode S or Fossile S and proposes their classification in two branches Dibranchiata and Tetrabranchiata in 1832 which becomes universally accepted. The Arthropode Limulus is also the object of a report in 1873.

Poisson, reptiles and birds

Descriptions of Owen of the Vertébré S are even more numerous than those of the Invertébré S. Its Comparative Anatomy and Physiology off Vertebrates - comparative Anatomie and physiology of vertebrate the (3 volumes., London, 1866 - 1868) are a work more personal than very other since the Leçons of comparative anatomy of Georges Cuvier. He studied not only existing forms but also the remainders of extinct groups and immediately followed Cuvier in his work of pionner in Paléontologie of the vertebrate ones. Early in its career it makes an exhaustive study of the Dent S, again of existing and extinct species. It publishes an abundantly illustrated book Odontography (1840 - 1845). He discovers and describes the structure of the teeth of a Fossile S which he names Labyrinthodonts . However it engages in a polemic, with Gideon Mantell in connection with a tooth of Iguanodon, in which Mantell manages to show its error. Inter alia publications on the Poisson S, his report on a African fish that it names Prolopterus will lead to the recognition by Johannes Müller of the family of the dipnoïdés . It shows also connection between the ganoïdés téléostéens and grouping them in only one class, the téléostomi .

Largest of its work on the Reptile S is related to the Squelette S fossils and its principal reports on the British specimens will be republished in four volumes called History off British Fossil Reptiles ( Histoire of the British fossils ). It publishes the first bulky report on the group of terrestrial reptiles of the Mesozoic that it names Dinosaure S. It recognizes also the first the curious group of reptiles about Mesozoic primitive which has affinities with the Amphibien S and the Mammifère S and names them Anomodontia . The majority come from South Africa and off provide him the hardware requirement with its Catalog the Fossil Reptilia off South Africa published by the British Museum in 1876. Inter alia work on the Bird X, its traditional report on the aptéryx (1840-1846), long series on the species disappeared from the Dinornithidae of New Zealand, of other memories on the aptornis, the notornis, the dodo, and the Large penguin, must be mentioned. Its monograph on the Archéoptéryx, 1863, a toothed bird with long tail coming from Bavaria, also marked its time.

With Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Owen creates the first realistic sculptures life size of dinosaurs. Some of those are created for the World Fair of 1851, others when the Crystal De luxe hotel is moved with Sydenham in the south of London. Owen organized a famous dinner there where 21 of the most famous scientists of the time was invited.

Mammals

The most outstanding contributions of Owen relate to the marsupial Monotrème S, and the Singe S anthropoïdes. While it describes remainders Fossile S in 1870 it is the first to recognize the two groups of Ongulé S, those with an even number of fingers, the Artiodactyle S, and those with an odd number of fingers, the Périssodactyle S. However the majority of its work on the mammals relate to disappeared species to which its attention seems to be drawn by the remarkable collection of fossils South American of Charles Darwin. The let us toxodons Pampa S is the first obviousness of one ongulés disappeared, a pachyderm having of the characteristics of the Rongeur S, the toothless S and the Cétacé S herbivores. He discovers also Tatou S giants which he names Glyptodon (1839) and written memories on giant species of Paresseux living on the ground, the Mylodon (1842) and the Megatherium (1860) inter alia important contributions.

At the same time Sir Thomas Mitchell discovers bones fossilized in News-Wales of the South which provide to Owen the material for the first paper of long series on the mammals disappeared from Australia which will be republished in 1877. He discovers the diprotodon and the thylacoleo as well as species of Kangourou S and Wombat S giants. In same time it collects fossils of the British Isles and between 1844 and 1846 publishes off its History British Fossil Mammals and Birds , Histoire of the British fossils of mammals and birds which is followed by many others memories, for example: Monograph off the Fossil Mammalia off the Mesozoic Formations , Monograph on the fossil mammals of the formations Mesozoic S . One of its last work is entitled Antiquity off Man ace deduced from the Discovery off has Human Skeleton during Excavations off the Docks At Tilbury , antiquity of the man deduced from discovered human skeletons in the excavations of the docks of Tilbury (1884)

Its legacies

The reading of the memories of Owen claims a hard reading, due to the nomenclature used and the ambiguity of its modes of expression, little of its terminology will be universally recognized and thus will be more or less neglected. In same time it should be remembered that it is a pionner in the concise anatomical nomenclature and that, at least for the Squelette S Vertébré S, its terms are selected according to a philosophical diagram carefully considered which distinguishes for the first time clearly between the Analogie and the homology. The theory of Owen on the Prototype and Homologies off the Vertebrate Skeleton , Prototypes and homology of the vertebrate skeletons (1848) illustrated in 1849 by One the Nature off Limbs describes the structure of vertebrate like consistent in a series of identical fundamental segments, each one modified according to its position and of its function. Many of these ideas are chimerical and fail when one examines them from the point of view of the Embryologie that Owen is unaware of systematically in all this work. However its vision has a distinctive value at that time.

It seldom contributes to the major philosophical problem brought by progress of biology. Its generalizations seldom extend beyond the comparative anatomy, the phenomena of adaptation to the function and the facts geographical or the geological distributions. However its readings on the Parthénogenèse published in 1849 contain the gasoline of the theory of the germinatif Plasma later elaborate by August Weismann. It makes also several times of the illusions, but rather vague, on the succession of the kinds and the species and of their possible derivation the ones since the others. It more particularly refers to the successive forms of horses (1868) and of Crocodile S (1884) but it forever be clearly up to which point he admits the modern theories on the evolution. It supported its point of view with this brutal remark: “The inductive demonstration of the nature and the mode of operation of the laws controlling the life should henceforth be the greatest goal of the philosophers naturalists. ”

Its grandson wrote a book on his life: The Life off Richard Owen, by his grandson , rev. Richard Owen (2 volumes, London, 1894)

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