Editing Comparative anatomy (section)

== History ==
[[File:Belon_Oyseaux.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Skeletons of humans
 and birds compared by [[Pierre Belon]], 1555]]

The first specifically anatomical investigation separate from a surgical or medical procedure is associated by [[Alcmaeon of Croton]].<ref name="Blits_1999">{{cite journal | vauthors = Blits KC | title = Aristotle: form, function, and comparative anatomy | journal = The Anatomical Record | volume = 257 | issue = 2 | pages = 58–63 | date = April 1999 | pmid = 10321433 | doi = 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0185(19990415)257:2<58::AID-AR6>3.0.CO;2-I | s2cid = 38940794 | doi-access =  }}</ref> [[Leonardo da Vinci]] made notes for a planned anatomical treatise in which he intended to compare the hands of various animals including bears.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bean |first1=Jacob |last2=Stampfle |first2=Felice |title=Drawings from New York Collections I: The Italian Renaissance |date=1965 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |location=Greenwich, CT |page=28}}</ref> [[Pierre Belon]], a French naturalist born in 1517, conducted research and held discussions on [[dolphin]] embryos as well as the comparisons between the skeletons of birds to the skeletons of humans. His research led to modern comparative anatomy.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Gudger EW |title=The Five Great Naturalists of the Sixteenth Century: Belon, Rondelet, Salviani, Gesner and Aldrovandi: A Chapter in the History of Ichthyology |journal=Isis |date=1934 |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=21–40 |doi=10.1086/346870|s2cid=143961902 }}</ref>

[[File:Andreas Vesalius-Pierre Poncet.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Andreas Vesalius]]]]

Around the same time, [[Andreas Vesalius]] was also making some strides of his own. A young anatomist of Flemish descent made famous by a penchant for amazing charts, he was systematically investigating and correcting the anatomical knowledge of the Greek physician Galen. He noticed that many of Galen's observations were not even based on actual humans. Instead, they were based on other animals such as non-human [[ape]]s, [[monkey]]s, and [[oxen]].<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Mesquita ET, Souza Júnior CV, Ferreira TR | title = Andreas Vesalius 500 years--A Renaissance that revolutionized cardiovascular knowledge | journal = Revista Brasileira de Cirurgia Cardiovascular | volume = 30 | issue = 2 | pages = 260–5 | date = March 2015 | pmid = 26107459 | pmc = 4462973 | doi = 10.5935/1678-9741.20150024 }}</ref> In fact, he entreated his students to do the following, in substitution for human skeletons, as cited by Edward Tyson : "If you can't happen to see any of these, dissect an Ape, carefully view each Bone, &c. ..." Then he advises what sort of Apes to make the choice of, as most resembling a Man : And conclude  "One ought to know the Structure of all the Bones either in a Humane Body or in an Apes ; 'tis best in both ; and then to go to the Anatomy of the Muscles."<ref>Edward Tyson, Orang-Outang..., 1699, p. 59.</ref> Up until that point, Galen and his teachings had been the authority on human anatomy. The irony is that Galen himself had emphasized the fact that one should make one's own observations instead of using those of another, but this advice was lost during the numerous translations of his work. As [[Andreas Vesalius|Vesalius]] began to uncover these mistakes, other physicians of the time began to trust their own observations more than those of Galen.  An interesting observation made by some of these physicians was the presence of homologous structures in a wide variety of animals, even including humans. These observations were later used by [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]] as he formed his theory of [[Natural Selection]].<ref name=Caldwell2006>{{cite web | url=http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/history/compar_anat.shtml | title=Comparative Anatomy: Andreas Vesalius | access-date=17 February 2011 | last=Caldwell | first=Roy | name-list-style=vanc | year=2006 | publisher=University of California Museum of Paleontology | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101123075441/http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/history/compar_anat.shtml | archive-date=23 November 2010 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Edward Tyson]] is regarded as the founder of modern comparative anatomy. He is credited with determining that [[whale]]s and [[dolphin]]s are, in fact, mammals. Also, he concluded that [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzee]]s are more similar to humans than to [[monkey]]s because of their arms. [[Marco Aurelio Severino]] also compared various animals, including birds, in his ''Zootomia democritaea'', one of the first works of comparative anatomy. In the 18th and 19th century, great anatomists like [[George Cuvier]], [[Richard Owen]] and [[Thomas Henry Huxley]] revolutionized our understanding of the basic build and [[systematics]] of [[vertebrates]], laying the foundation for [[Charles Darwin]]'s work on [[evolution]]. An example of a 20th-century comparative anatomist is [[Victor Negus]], who worked on the structure and evolution of the larynx. Until the advent of genetic techniques like [[DNA sequencing]], comparative anatomy together with [[embryology]] were the primary tools for understanding [[phylogeny]], as exemplified by the work of [[Alfred Romer]].{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}