Carl Gegenbaur

Carl Gegenbaur was a German anatomist and professor, born in Wurzburg in 1826, who showed that comparative anatomy gives important evidence for the theory of evolution. He entered the University of Wurzburg in 1845, took his degree in 1851, and was professor of anatomy at the University of Jena from 1855 to 1873 and then at Heidelberg, where he directed the Anatomical Institute until 1901. At Jena he worked from 1858 with Ernst Haeckel and was a strong supporter of Darwin. His textbook Grundzuge der vergleichenden Anatomie of 1859 became the standard work on evolutionary morphology and stressed homology, the comparison of parts that share an evolutionary origin. He was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1896.