The observations for the first part began in 1819, after he had received a copy of Pander's researches and covered a period of seven years of close devotion to the subject, and the observations for the last part were carried on at intervals for several years.
It is significant of the character of his 'Reflexionen' that, although published before the announcement of the cell-theory, and before the acceptance of the doctrine of organic evolution, they have exerted a moulding influence upon embryology to the present time. The position of Von Baer in embryology, is due as much to his sagacity in speculation, as to his powers as an observer. "Never again have observation and thought been so successfully combined in embryological work" (Minot).
Von Baer was born in 1792, and lived on to 1876, but his enduring fame in embryology rests on work completed more than forty years before the end of his useful life. After his removal from Königsberg to St. Petersburg, in 1834, he very largely devoted himself to anthropology in its widest sense, and thereby extended his scientific reputation into other fields.
If space permitted, it would be interesting to give the biography[1] of this extraordinary man, but here, it will be necessary to content ourselves with an examination of his portrait and a brief account of his work.
Several portraits of Von Baer showing him at different periods of his life have been published. A very attractive one, taken in his early manhood, appeared in Harper's Magazine for 1898. The expression of the face is poetical, and the picture is interesting to compare with the more matured sage-like countenance forming the frontispiece of Stieda's 'Life of Von Baer.' This, perhaps best of all his portraits, shows him in the full development of his powers. An examination of it impresses one with confidence in his balanced judgment and the thoroughness and profundity of his mental operations.
The portrait of Von Baer at about seventy years of age, reproduced in Fig. 7 is destined to be the one by which he is commonly known to embryologists, since it forms the frontispiece of the great cooperative 'Handbook of Embryology' now appearing under the editorship of Oskar Her twig.
Apart from special discoveries, Von Baer greatly enriched embryology in three directions: In the first place, he set a higher standard for all work in embryology and thereby lifted the entire science to a higher level. Activity in a great field of this kind is, with the rank and file of workers, so largely imitative that this feature of his influence
- ↑ Besides biographical sketches by Stieda, Waldeyer and others, we have a very entertaining autobiography of Von Baer, published in 1864, for private circulation, but afterwards (1866) reprinted and placed on sale.
