Orang-outang, Sive Homo Sylvestris. Or, The Anatomy of a Pygmie Compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man. (Issued With): a Philogical Essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges of the Ancients. Wherin it will Appear that they are all Either Apes or Monkeys, Nd not Men, as Formerly Pretended

London: Printed for Thomas Bennet.and Daniel Brown, 1699 First edition of this landmark of comparative anatomy. Folio (11 1/4 x 8 3/8 inches). [12], 108, [2, publisher's ads] pp. Complete with all eight folding engraved plates by M. Vander Gucht after William Cowper. Contemporary speckled blind-panelled dark brown calf, red morocco gilt lettered label. Lower half of first plate supplied in expert facsimile. Previous owner's signatures and armorial bookplate. Overall, a very attractive copy; well-margined, clean and in a lovely contrmporary binding. "Comparative zoology was largely forgotten between the publication of the writings of Aristotle and the revival of the study of comparative anatomy at the end of the sixteenth and during the seventeenth century by writers such as Fabricius, Ruini, Perault, Grew and Blasius. Edward Tyson, physician at Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals, was the first to publish monographs on the subject, the chief of which is the book on the orang-outang, with illustrations and a chapter on muscles supplied by the physician William Cowper. It is th earliest important study i comparative morphology. Up to this time little was known of the higher anthropoid apes and their anatomy. Tyson compared the anatomy of men and monkeys, and he placed between them what he thought was a typical pygmy-it was, in fact and African Chimpanzee, the skeleton of which survives to this day in the Natural History Museum in London. The chimpanzee first appeared in zoological literature in 1625 and was described by Dr. Tulp (of Rembrandt's 'Anatomy Lesson') while the orang-outant, mentioned in 1658 wasf first scientifically described by Camper in 1778 and 1782." Tyson's work is less important for its anatomical descriptions than for the fact that he established a new family of anthropoid apes standing between monkey and man, and recognized that man was probably a close relative of certain lower animals. Popularized as the 'missing link', the theory that man shares some remote common ancestry with the apes was not clearly expounded until the publication of Huxley's 'Man's Place in Nature' in 1863 and Darwin's 'Descent of Man' in 1871. Tyson did not forsee the theory of evolution; but his work contributed substantially to its formulation and in the sense that he was a forerunner of Blumenbach, Buffon, Huxley and Darwin. In literature Sir Oran Haut-Ton in Peacock's novel 'Melinncourt' 1817, and the orang-outang in Shelley's 'Queen Mab', derive from Tyson-even if at second hand. Norman Library 2120. Printing and the Mind of Man 169. Wing T3598. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine.