Retzius

RETZIUS Magnus Gustav (Magnus Gustav Retzius, 1842-1919), son of the outstanding Swedish naturalist Anders Adolf R. (1796-1860), who proposed the division of human races by skull shape into brachycephalic and dolichocephalic types. He studied medicine at Uppsala and Stockholm and in Lund. R. held the chair of histology at the Carolinian Institute. In 1872, his first major works appeared in 'Anatomische Untersuchungen' (Stockholm): 'Das Gehorlabyrinth der Knochenfische' ('Anatomische Untersuchungen', Part 1, Stockholm, 1872) and 'Studien in d. Anatomie des Nervensystems und der Bindege-webe' (together with Keđem, 1875-76). In the 'Biologische Untersuchungen' (Stockholm, 188Д-82) published by R., there appeared a number of works by R. and his students. Among them can be mentioned 'Das Ge-hororgan d. Wirbelthiere' (Vols. I-II, Stockholm, 1881-84). In the new series of the same publication (Stockholm-Jena, Vols. I-XIII, 1890-1906) were placed numerous valuable, excellently published, exclusively his own large monographs concerning the most diverse questions of morphology, macro- and microscopic anatomy, embryology, and anthropology. The most important of them: 'Das Menschenhirn' (Stockholm, 1896); 'Das Gehirn d. Mathematikers S. Kowa-levski' (1900), description of the brain of educator Ad. Sil-lerstrom (1903), brain of a political figure (1904), astronomer Gylden, microcephalics, monkeys, Swedish skulls from the stone, bronze, and iron ages, Finnish skulls, etc. R. devoted his main attention to the nervous system.