Descripción

London, The Royal Society, 1849. Large 4to (30.0 x 23.0 cm). 22 pp.; three lithographed plates. Disbound. = A milestone in the knowledge of Medusae. Written by the eminent zoologist, anatomist, surgeon, agnostic (coiner of the word), and Charles Darwin's strongest supporter, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895). "He became perhaps the finest comparative anatomist of the later 19th century. He worked on invertebrates, clarifying relationships between groups previously little understood. Huxley's paper 'On the anatomy and the affinities of the family of Medusae' was published in 1849 by the Royal Society in its Philosophical Transactions [this paper]. Huxley united the Hydroid and Sertularian polyps with the Medusae to form a class to which he subsequently gave the name of Hydrozoa. The connection he made was that all the members of the class consisted of two cell layers, enclosing a central cavity or stomach. This is characteristic of the phylum now called the Cnidaria. He compared this feature to the serous and mucous structures of embryos of higher animals. When at last he got a grant from the Royal Society for the printing of plates, Huxley was able to summarise this work in The Oceanic Hydrozoa, published by the Ray Society in 1859" (Wikipedia). This is in fact Huxley's first scientific paper. Edges a bit toned, dampstain in the upper inner corner of the plates, not reaching the printed figures; otherwise very good, unmarked. Amazingly, neither in Cat. BM(NH), nor in Nissen ZBI.