Edward Tyson and The Anatomy of a Pygmie,1699

Other, succinct, accounts of Tyson's achievements may be found in Munk W . The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London. London; Royal College of Physicians, 1878: vol. 1, pp. 426–8; and in Lee S , Ed. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1899: vol. 57, pp. 448–9. Neither are without error, as pointed out by Ashley Montagu, pp. 50 n28,106, 189 n4, 199, and 200 n90

For a stimulating account of Oxford during this time, see Frank RG Jr. Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980

For an account of Richard Lower, see Larner AJ. A portrait of Richard Lower. Endeavour 1987; 11: 205–8. Besides their anatomical expertise and Oxford training, other parallels between Tyson and Lower include their West Country origin, the possession of an eponymous structure of little importance compared with the contribution of their major works, and the almost complete neglect of posterity. Tyson alludes to Lower, in describing the pygmie's heart (p. 50): “[he] shewed us the way of dissecting it, and … made it most evident that it is muscular”

For a bibliography of Tyson's works, see Ashley Montagu MF (op. cit. ref. 1): 462–5. He lists almost 40 publications in all, including 25 communications in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, as well as the three monographs. The Tyson folio of drawings may be viewed at the Royal College of Physicians of London (MS 618); it comprises 204 sketches, most pasted in, some loose, with a few pages of description, most in Latin. The sketches (not all of which are by Tyson's hand) appear to be in no particular order; few are dated

Tyson's account of a perforated gastric peptic ulcer in the American opossum has attracted some recent attention: Baron JH . Edward Tyson's case of an American with gastric perforation. J R Coll Physicians Lond 1998; 32: 265–7

This is clearly stated in the Preliminary Discourse to Phocaena, or the Anatomy of a Porpess … (1680)

Hooke's Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon was published in 1665

For Tyson glands, see Ashley Montagu MF (op. cit. ref. 1): 206–8. These continue to be referred to by Tyson's name, for example in Gray's Anatomy

For John Caius performing anatomies at the Barber-Surgeons' Hall, see O'Malley CD. English Medical Humanists: Thomas Linacre and John Caius. Logan Clendening Lectures on the History and Philosophy of Medicine, 12th Series. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1965: 32

Allderidge P. Bethlem Hospital 1247–1997: A Pictorial Record. Chichester: Phillimore, 1997: 26

See, for example, Silvette On H. Insanity in seventeenth-century England. Bull Hist Med. 1938; 6: 22–33. O'Donoghue EG (op. cit. ref. 10: 239) mentions a representation to the governors of Bethlem in 1699 regarding public visiting, but does not say from whom. Ashley Montagu MF (op. cit. ref. 1; 348) gives a new regulation instituted at Bethlem in 1699 aiming to exclude “lewd or disorderly persons” and believes this to be due to Tyson

and in Bindman D. Hogarth and His Times: Serious Comedy. London: British Museum Press, 1997: 200 (in its 1763 revision)

Tyson E. Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: or, the Anatomy of a Pygmie Compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape and a Man. London: 1699; 2nd edn, 1751

Montagu MF Ashley (op. cit. ref. 1): 249

Galen On the Natural Faculities. III; ii: 146–7, cited in Jackson R. Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire. London: British Museum Press, 1988: 62. See also Ashley Montagu MF. Knowledge of the ancients regarding the ape. Bull Hist Med 1941; 10:525–43

Charles Dickens refers to the “Monboddo doctrine touching the probability of the human race having once been monkeys” in the final paragraph of the first chapter of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–4)

Tyson E. A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs and Sphinges of the Ancients, wherein it will appear that they were all either apes or monkeys; and not men as formerly pretended. London: 1699. Reprinted London: BCA Windle, 1894

Jeffery P. The City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren. London: Hambledon Press, 1996: 96

Charles JHA (Rev. Stevens GH ). The Parish Church of All Hallows Twickenham. 1965: 16 18. Tyson is erroneously described as a surgeon

Note added in proof: these paintings have now been moved

O'Donoghue EG (op. cit. ref. 10): 25

Contrary to the statement that Edward Tyson was the father of Richard Tyson, which appears in Munk W (op. cit. ref. 1): vol. 2, p. 53, and repeated in Tyson's Dictionary of National Biography entry (op. cit. ref. 1). Richard Tyson was in fact his nephew, and inherited his uncle's extensive library

This is probably an allusion to the Roman poet Lucretius (full name Titus Lucretius Carus). His De Rerum naturâ had recently been translated by John Dryden (1685) and would certainly have been known to the literati; Tyson cites it, on the subject of satyrs, in the Philological Essay (p. 48). Ashley Montagu MF (op. cit. ref. 1: 322) suggests the use of the name Carus reflects the esteem in which Garth held Tyson, despite his opposition to his stance in the dispensary dispute. However, this may be a double-edged compliment, since there was a tradition that Lucretius was mad (see, for example, Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem “Lucretius”in his 1869 collection The Holy Grail and Other Poems), which may have had a greater appeal for Garth

Montagu MF Ashley (op. cit. ref. 1): 321