Volume 1

The collected papers of Sir W. Bowman, Bart., F.R.S / edited for the committee of the "Bowman Testimonial Fund" by J. Burdon-Sanderson and J. W. Hulke.

  • Bowman, William, Sir, 1816-1892.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The collected papers of Sir W. Bowman, Bart., F.R.S / edited for the committee of the "Bowman Testimonial Fund" by J. Burdon-Sanderson and J. W. Hulke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    years, 1839-42, included his original investigations on The Structure of Striated Muscle, read before the Boyal Society in 1840-41 • on The Structure of the Mucous Membrane of the Alimentary Canal, which appeared in Todd's ' Cyclopasdia of Anatomy and Physiology'; and on The Structure of the Kidney, which was read before the Eoyal Society, June, 1842. In the year 1839 Dr. Todd commenced the publication of the ' Cyclopsedia of Anatomy and Physiology,' the largest and most important work of the kind that has appeared in England, and still valuable for the number and variety of the original articles contributed by men of the highest standing. It was natural that Dr. Todd should engage the services of one who had already shown that he was a first-rate microscopist, and who was a member of the staff of his own hospital. Accordingly we find that Bowman was early engaged as a writer, his name appearing for the first time as a contributor in the third volume. The several articles Mucous Membrane, Muscle, Muscular Motion, and Pacinian Bodies were from his pen. These were, however, the only articles he wrote for the ' Cyclopsedia,' as he probably then became fully occupied with the preparation of the ' Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man.' The article on Mucous Membrane is for the time at which it was written exhaustive, and this piece of work was the more creditable because microscopic research was then in its infancy. The soft tex- ture of the mucous membranes renders them exceedingly difficult to examine, and the means of hardening, cutting and mounting sections which are now common and have so materially aided investigators in this subject, were then almost limited to maceration in alcohol and in solutions of a few salts of various degrees of strength. The appearance of the ' Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man,' which Bowman wrote in conjunction with Todd, the first part of which appeared in February, 1843, and the fourth and last, in 1856, constituted an epoch in physiology. It was the first physiological work in which histology—the accurate description of the structure of the various organs and tissues as displayed by the microscope—was given. It was written in a singularly lucid and interesting style, and its immense