OWEN, RICHARD, Wag b. at Lancaster, July 20. 1804. Having received his element ary education at the grammar-school of that town, lie became, at the age of 20, a student in the Edinburgh university. Under the guidance of the third Morro, Alison, Jameson, and l lope in the university, and of Barclay in the outdoor school, his natural talents early deve4oped themselves. • lie was an active student, and with others of kindred spirit, formed the Ilunterian society, of which lie was chosen president in 1825. In 1826. he removed to London, joining, the medical school of St. Bartholomew's hospital; and to the Medical society of this institution he communicated his earliest published paper: "An Account of the Dissection of the Parts concerned in the Aneurism, for the Cure of which Dr. Steven's tied the internal Iliac Artery," which appeared in the Medico. Chirtergical Trvuuvvoc'uen00 for 1830. It was doubted so deep-seated an artery could have been reached, hut he showed that the ligature had been applied to the internal iliac, and the aheurism had in this way been obliterated.
It had been his intention to enter the navy; but when he finished his education, he accepted an appointment as assistant to Mr. Cliff, the curator of the museum of the royal college of surgeons, and helped him in the preparation of his catalogues of " Patholog ical Specimens" (1830), "Monsters and Malformations "(1831), but chiefly of the "Speci mens of Natural Ilistory in Spirits" (1830). Ile had, about this time, the fortune to obtain a specimen of nautilus pompilius, an animal almost unknown, and of great impor tance not only in itself, but also and chiefly because of its numerous fossil allies. The results of his careful dissection of this specimen were published in an elaborate mem oir, which at once gave him a high position amongst naturalists, for the advanced views on structure and affinities it contained.
The continued examination of Hunter's extensive collections in the college of surgeons' museum was his great work. This resulted in the enlargement and arrangement of the collections, and in the publication of his Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of time Phys iological Series of Comparative Anatomy, which was issued in sections during 1833-40; of his Bileontological Catalogue, of which the Mammals and Birds were published in 1645, and the Reptiles and Fishes in 1854; and of his Catalogue (f Recent Osteology (1854), in which he describes 5,90G specimens. The collections, which iu 1828 were eontaimd in
one small badly-lighted room, in 1856. when Oven's connection with them terminated, filled 10 times the original space—three large galleries having been specially erected to contain them.
Owen's position as curator of the Hunterian museum, to which lie succeeded on the death of Clift, awakened in him a special interest in its famous founder. In 1837, he pnlilis)ed a new edition of Hunter's Animal Economy, adding to it all the known pub lished papers of its author and giving in the preface, for the first time, a descriptive narrative of Hunter's real discoveries. lie afterward edited two volumes of Essays and Observations on Natural HistorY, Anatomy, etc., by John Hunter (1861), which had been saved from Home's unprincipled and barbarous destrection of Hunter's manuscripts, by having been transcribed by Clift,,who was the last articled apprentice of Hunter. In the preface to these volumes, by showed the advanced views which Hunter entertained neology and paleontology.
The first appointment of Owen as public lecturer was to the chair of comparative anatomy in St. Bartholomew's hospital in 1834. Two years afterwards, lie succeeded sir Charles Bell as professor of anatomy and physiology in the college of surgeons, and was in the sante year appointed by the college as first " Ilunterian professor." For 20 years he continued to illustrate the recent and fossil treasures of the museum, until, in 1856, he was appointed superintendent of the natural history department of the British museum, when his connection with the college of surgeons ceased.