[DARWIN] MACALISTER, Alexander (1844–1919)

[Offprint] Review of Charles Darwin's Descent of Man

(from the Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, August, 1871)

140 x 218mm; various paginations (Darwin review paginated [1]–20).

A sammelband of Macalister's works, bearing his ex libris bookplate and a manuscript table of contents. The first six offprints are anatomical (including an account of the koala). Macalister's review of Darwin is item No. VII in the collection. The second half of the collection contains more anatomy, as well as entomology and parasitology, and a lengthy review on 'Recent Works on Life and Organization' (1870).

Irish anatomist Macalister (1844–1919) came from a family of polymaths, and was himself proficient in mathematics, languages, archaeology and a host of other disciplines. His studies in anatomy were also wide-ranging, as indicated by the offprints collected by him here. At the time that he wrote on Darwin he was recently appointed Professor of Zoology at the University of Dublin, having previously been Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin. In 1883, he succeeded Sir George Murray Humphrey in the chair of anatomy at Cambridge, and held this post for thirty-six years.

Macalister's review shows him to be extremely well versed in evolutionary literature from both the Anglophone and Continental traditions. He brings his anatomical expertise to bear on the question of the evolution of man, finding Darwin's case to be unassailable. His views on the evolution of mental faculties are more uncertain, and he is not sympathetic to Darwin's naturalizing arguments.

All of the offprints are scarce; the Darwin review is located in this form only at Trinity College Dublin.

The collection is rebound in plain black cloth, retaining the endpapers and two contents pages, the manuscript version heavily foxed. The remainder of the volume is very clean, however, and the Darwin is unmarked. Occasional pencil marks and corrections; plates to some of the texts. From the collection of the polymathic bibliophile Eric Korn (1933–2014).