Background
Richard Harlan was born on September 19, 1796 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the eighth of ten children of Joshua Harlan, a wealthy Quaker farmer and merchant, and Sarah Hinchman.
(Excerpt from Medical and Physical Researches, or Original...)
Excerpt from Medical and Physical Researches, or Original Memoirs in Medicine, Surgery, Physiology, Geology, Zoology, and Comparative Anatomy Between the physical sciences and the arts of life there subsists a constant mu tual interchange of good offices, and no considerable progress can be made in the one Without of necessity giving rise to corresponding steps in the other. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
https://www.amazon.com/Physical-Researches-Original-Physiology-Comparative/dp/0282776451?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0282776451
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Herpetology-Genera-North-Reptilia/dp/116209009X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=116209009X
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
https://www.amazon.com/Fauna-Americana-Richard-1796-1843-Harlan/dp/1362199354?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1362199354
naturalist physician scientist Zoologist
Richard Harlan was born on September 19, 1796 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the eighth of ten children of Joshua Harlan, a wealthy Quaker farmer and merchant, and Sarah Hinchman.
Harlan studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and while he was still a student made a voyage to India as ship's surgeon. He took a degree in 1818 at the age of twenty-two.
Harlan began to practice medicine in Philadelphia. For a time he was in charge of the private dissecting room opened by his preceptor, Doctor Joseph Parrish. Three years after his graduation he was elected, in 1821, professor of comparative anatomy in the Philadelphia Museum and also surgeon to that institution.
In 1832 he was a member of a commission sent to Canada and New York by the Sanitary Board of Philadelphia to study the epidemic of Asiatic cholera prevalent at that time. Between 1832 and 1836 he was the corresponding secretary of the Geological Society of Pennsylvania and one of its three curators. In 1838 he visited Europe and after his return removed to New Orleans.
His most important publications in the field of medicine and human anatomy were Anatomical Investigations (1824) and certain papers in his Medical and Physical Researches (1835).
Harlan's major interest was the study of zoology and vertebrate paleontology. His first publication in the latter field, "Observations on Fossil Elephant Teeth of North America, " appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in June 1823, and was followed soon after, January 1824, by an article on the new genus Saurocephalus, a fossil reptile brought back by Lewis and Clark. In 1824 also he published his Observations on the Genus Salamandra and, as a result of an investigation of the West Jersey region in that year with Thomas Say and Titian Peale, he wrote a paper on an American Plesiosaur, a form hitherto supposed to be limited to Europe.
His most notable work Fauna Americana, the first systematic treatise on American mammals, appeared in 1825. A compilation based in large part on A. G. Desmarest's Mammalogie (1820-1822), it dealt with both living and extinct forms, grouping the fossil forms with what the author presumed to be their nearest living representative. The work was received with hostile criticism, and the second part, which was to have dealt with the reptiles, was never published. Harlan was undiscouraged, however; in 1826 he wrote a brief monograph on the "Genera of North American Reptilia, " and in 1827 published as a pamphlet his American Herpetology.
He was one of the first to support Featherstonhaugh's new Monthly American Journal of Geology, to which he contributed in 1831 an interesting paper on the Jeffersonian genus Megalonyx. In a paper read in 1832 on the discovery of an Ichthyosaurus in Missouri, he forecast the beginning of the discovery of the great fossil treasures of the West. Although the modern science of odontography, or odontology, was then virtually unknown, he contributed to the Geological Society of Pennsylvania in 1834 a paper "On the Structure and Teeth of the Edentata Fossil. "
During this same year he made his most extensive contribution to the science of vertebrate paleontology in his "Critical Notices of Various Organic Remains hitherto Discovered in North America. " This study was in large part a response to the desire of European naturalists for concrete information as to what had been accomplished in America. After his removal to New Orleans he published little. He died there of apoplexy at the age of forty-seven.
Richard Harlan went down in history as a a prolific scientist and writer, best remembered for his "Fauna Americana" and "American Herpetology. " He contributed papers to the Société Géologique de France, the Geological Society of London, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science. His chief service to American natural history was not his own research, however, so much as the collection and codification of the work of earlier writers in the field.
(Excerpt from Medical and Physical Researches, or Original...)
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
In 1843 Harlan was elected vice-president of the Louisiana State Medical Society. He also was a corresponding member of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
On January 30, 1833, Harlan married Margaret Hart (Simmons) Howell, a widow.
