Comparative anatomy
Edward Tyson is regarded as the founder of modern comparative anatomy. He is credited with determining that whales and dolphins are, in fact, mammals. Also, he concluded that chimpanzees are more similar to humans than to monkeys because of their arms. Marco Aurelio Severino also compared various animals, including birds, in his "Zootomia democritaea", one of the first works of comparative anatomy. In the 18th and 19th century, great anatomists like George Cuvier, Richard Owen and Thomas Henry Huxley revolutionized our understanding of the basic build and systematics of vertebrates, laying the foundation for Charles Darwin's work on evolution. An example of a 20th-century comparative anatomist is Victor Negus, who worked on the structure and evolution of the larynx. Until the advent of genetic techniques like DNA sequencing, comparative anatomy together with embryology were the primary tools for understanding phylogeny, as exemplified by the work of Alfred Romer.
Marius Nasta
The fall of communism in Romania in 1989 enabled the Romanian scientific and medical community to acknowledge Marius Nasta as "the founder of modern Romanian phthisiology". The centenary of his birth in 1990 was marked in Bucharest by the renaming of the "Institute of Phthisiology" as the "Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumophthisiology". The Institute remains to this day a leading hospital, teaching and research centre in the field of pulmonary diseases which includes the Pneumology Clinic of the "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy. Current and former staff of the Institute include Constantin Anastasatu, (a physician, member of the Romanian Academy and former head of the "Marius Nasta Institute"), C. Carpinisan (a thoracic surgeon considered the founder of Romanian thoracic surgery), Al. Bulla, I.P. Stoicescu, Miron Bogdan, (a physician and member of the Romanian Academcy of Medical Sciences), Florin Mihaltan, Stefan Rujinski and Claudia Toma to name but a few.