Volume 1

Catalogue of the specimens illustrating the osteology and dentition of vertebrated animals, recent and extinct, contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England / by William Henry Flower.

  • Flower, William Henry, 1831-1899.
Date:
1879-84]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Catalogue of the specimens illustrating the osteology and dentition of vertebrated animals, recent and extinct, contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England / by William Henry Flower. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    PEEFACE. . The first printed list of the Osteological Specimens contained in the Museum was published in 1831. It soon, however, became evident that a more complete catalogue was required; and at a meeting of the Museum Committee, held on the 6th of January, 1842, Professor Owen, then Conservator of the Museum, presented a report On the advantages of combining the Fossil and Recent Osteological Specimens in one Catalogue and system of arrangement; and at a meeting on the 8th of February of the same year it was resolved, in pursuance of the authority given to the Committee by the Council, that the fossil and recent osteology be incorporated in one series, and the Catalogue be prepared in accordance with this view. For some motive not explained upon the Minutes, the method of arrangement approved by the Committee and Council, and which had been recommended with much urgency and excellent reasoning by the Conservator, was not carried out. The spe- cimens continued to be divided primarily, not according to their zoological or anatomical relations, but by a most incon- a2