Professor of Anatomy
Joseph Leidy lecturing to medical students on anatomy in 1888. (This image is a detail of a photograph. Click here or on this image to view the full photograph.)
Joseph Leidy's special talents in human anatomy were evident while he was a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania. His main teacher and mentor, Dr. Paul Goddard (1), enlisted Leidy to become his assistant. A year following his graduation, he was made prosector (2) to Dr. William Horner (3), who was the Professor of Anatomy and Dean of the Medical School.
Despite considerable opposition (4), Leidy was appointed Professor of Anatomy following Dr. Horner's death in 1853. At only 31 years of age, Leidy held the most prestigious position at the most important medical school in the country. He kept this job for the next 38 years. This position provided Leidy with a steady income base which enabled him to pursue his true avocation, scientific research.
The scope of Leidy's knowledge and interests were on full display during his first introductory lecture on anatomy. He exposed his students to many revolutionary ideas. First, he emphasized that the study of human anatomy was only a branch of comparative anatomy (5). He also discussed many of the pressing problems of 19th century biology, including the cellular basis of life (6), spontaneous generation (7), and the role of anatomy, physiology, chemistry and the microscope in understanding disease (8).
One of the challenges facing the new Professor of Anatomy was the lack of a good textbook on human anatomy. In response, he wrote An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy in 1861. This book helped modernize medical education and remained a standard medical textbook for several generations.
Notes:
- Dr. Paul Goddard (1811-1866)
made significant contributions to medicine and medical education. He was also
an important pioneer in early photography, developing a crucial improvement in
the daguerreotype process. He
was an important influence early in Leidy's career. He introduced Leidy to the
microscope which proved crucial in much of Leidy's later research. He also helped
launch Leidy's scientific career by recommending the young Leidy to Amos Binney,
a zoologist in Boston who needed an anatomist and scientific illustrator.
[go back] - The
Prosector conducts the
dissection for the professor.
[go back] - Dr.
William Horner: Horner (1793-1853) made significant contributions to surgery,
pathology and the anatomy of the eye. As dean of the Medical School of the University
of Pennsylvania, Horner oversaw the school's resurgence following its decline
in the early 1800s.
[go back] - Leidy
was regarded by many as the best choice to succeed Horner, but some influential
people objected to his young age, lack of social standing within the upper class,
and his questionable religious beliefs.
[go back] - Comparative
Anatomy is the study of similarities and differences of anatomy among species.
This science originated in Europe, and was introduced into the United States during
the 19th Century by a number of scientists and educators, including Leidy. By
saying that human anatomy was a part of comparative anatomy, Leidy challenged
the notion that human biology was unique and distinct from that of animals.
[go back] - Two
Europeans, Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann, proposed in 1838 that cells
were the fundamental units of all living plants and animals. This discovery was
made possible by the microscope and it stimulated the use of this tool for further
research. It also led to the idea that cells (and all living things) come from
cells and not from spontaneous generation.
[go back] - For
centuries, people thought that many living things arose spontaneously. After all,
how else could one explain the sudden appearance of mold on bread or of tiny animals
in a new pool of water? This idea, Spontaneous Generation, was popular in science
and medicine during the first half of the 19th Century, but it was finally discredited
through the efforts of Leidy and others.
[go back] - Most
American doctors and many medical educators of the early 19th Century believed
that their job was to treat patients with time-honored methods. They saw little
value in medical research. Some even denounced the microscope as a useless gadget
that confounded our understanding of nature. Leidy was an advocate for medical
research and for the microscope as a research tool. He believed that it was a
vital tool for the understanding of both life and disease. In the end, the microscope
proved crucial to discrediting the idea of spontaneous generation and laid the
groundwork for the revolutionary idea that many diseases are caused by microscopic
organisms such as bacteria and viruses.
[go back]