An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

16061 entries, 14144 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: November 17, 2024

GREW, Nehemiah

3 entries
  • 11640

The anatomy of vegetables begun. With an a general account of vegetation founded thereon.

London: Printed for Spencer Hickman, 1672.

"Grew was a conscious pioneer in a hitherto neglected area...  His work was primarily marked by his brilliant observation and description of plants and their component parts; having begun by making observations using only the naked eye, Grew supplemented these with the use of a microscope under the tutelage of his colleague [Robert] Hooke. His presentations to the society began in 1672–4 with the roots, branches, and trunks of plants, proceeding thereafter to their leaves, flowers, fruit, and seeds. In each area he was innovative, studying for the first time many features of plants that have since been taken for granted, such as their cell-like structure and the growth rings in wood, and deploying techniques which have since become commonplace, such as the use of transverse, radial, and tangential longitudinal sections to analyse the structure of stems and roots. He was also an innovator in the terminology he used to describe plants, first using such terms as ‘radicle’ or ‘parenchyma’, a word adapted from its use in animal anatomy by Francis Glisson. Grew was primarily interested in the morphology and taxonomy of plants, but this led him to study plant physiology; he thus considered how buds grew, how seeds developed, and other related topics. He also recognized the sexual nature of plant reproduction, though, with characteristic modesty, he acknowledged that this idea had already occurred to the physician Sir Thomas Millington" (ODNB).



Subjects: BOTANY
  • 297

Musaeum Regalis Societatis, or a catalogue and description of the natural and artificial rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham College. Whereunto is subjoyned the comparative anatomy of stomachs and guts.

London: H. Newman, 1681.

Grew, secretary to the Royal Society, compiled this illustrated catalogue of its museum, then housed at Gresham College. Published with the catalogue is Grew’s study of the stomach organs, which is the first zoological book to have the term “comparative anatomy” on the title page, and also the first attempt to deal with one system of organs only by the comparative method. Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, MUSEUMS › Medical, Anatomical & Pathological , MUSEUMS › Natural History Museums / Wunderkammern, ZOOLOGY
  • 11232

Nehemiah Grew: A study and bibliography of his writings. By William LeFanu.

Winchester, Hampshire, England: St. Paul's Bibliographies, 1990.


Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographies of Individual Authors, BOTANY › History of Botany, NATURAL HISTORY › History of Natural History