Biology Takes Form

Animal Morphology and the German Universities, 1800-1900

Lynn K Nyhart author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:The University of Chicago Press

Published:19th Oct '95

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Biology Takes Form cover

This study argues that morphology was integral to the life sciences of the 19th century. It traces the development of morphological research in German universities and illuminates significant institutional and intellectual changes in 19th-century German biology. Although there were neither professors of morphology nor a morphologists' society, morphologists achieved influence by "colonizing" niches in a variety of disciplines. Scientists in anatomy, zoology, natural history, and physiology considered their work morphological, and the term encompassed research that today might be classified as embryology, systematics, functional morphology, comparative physiology, ecology, behaviour, evolutionary theory, or histology. Nyhart draws on research notes, correspondence and other archival material to examine how these scientists responded to new ideas and to the work of colleagues. She examines the intertwined histories of morphology and the broader biological enterprise, demonstrating that the study of form was central to investigations of such issues as the relationships between an animal's structure and function, between an organism and its environment, and between living species and their ancestors.

ISBN: 9780226610887

Dimensions: 23mm x 15mm x 3mm

Weight: 652g

428 pages