The discovery of the existence of lacteal and lymphatic vessels in birds, reptiles, and fish brought William Hewson into prominence and secured him membership in the Royal Society. He published his monograph on the coagulation of the blood in 1771.
William Cumberland Cruikshank (1745-1800) investigated the surgery of the nerves, the functioning of the Fallopian tubes, the physiology of absorption.
The electrical discoveries of Galvani, Volta, Benjamin Franklin, Henly and others caused much experimenting with the electric current in the treatment of muscular diseases.
The Monros, father, son and grandson, by their wonderful teaching abilities, caused the medical teaching center of Europe to be transferred from Leyden to Edinburgh in 1720. These men, and many of their students, did brilliant work in all branches of medicine.
The medical school which they so established in Edinburgh University still maintains its great reputation.
The best anatomists of the eighteenth century were Cheselden, Pott, the Monros, the Hunters, Desault, and Scarpa. Their work was largely topographical. Surgical anatomy started with the writings of Joseph Lieutaud (1703-1780), Albinus, Eisenmann, Soemmering, Mascagni, Sandifort, and Caldani.
The anatomical textbooks in use in the year 1800 gave general accounts of the body's structure and included current theories of the functions of organs and their relationships to injuries and disease. More than half of the chapters were occupied with morbid anatomy and the recital of cases. The anatomy of the tissues and finer structures was neglected because the microscopes of the period were little better than simple lenses.
Physiology was studied by all medical students, but the science was so badly developed that it never stood alone. For many years it formed a part of studies in anatomy. Early in the nineteenth century it began to expand, and in 1846 physiology was taught as a separate subject for the first time at Guy's hospital, London, by Sir William Gull. Before that it was taught by the professors of midwifery. It was the great developments made in chemistry and physics, referred to in previous chapters, that pushed physiology to the front as an important branch of medical science.
Denman's "Introduction to the Practice of Midwifery," the work of the greatest living authority at the time of its publication in 1805, shows that gynecology hardly existed at that time.
Anesthetics and antiseptics, together with the systematic employment of abdominal and bimanual palpation, all were revolutionary discoveries of the nineteenth century, unknown when Denman presided over the obstetric department of the Middlesex Hospital.