BROOKES, Joshua, a celebrated English anatomist, was born in 1761. At a very early age he devoted himself to medical science, and attended the lectures of the most eminent surgeons in London and Paris. As soon as he had completed his studies, he began to teach anatomy and physiology, and continued to do so during forty years of his life, training no fewer than 5000 students, many of whom afterwards became famous in different parts of the world. His museum, which contained specimens not only of human and comparative anatomy, but also of natural history in all its branches, was arranged on a system combined from the various methods of Cuvier, Blumenbach, Linnæus, and other naturalists, and cost its proprietor about £30,000.
Many of his treatises are printed in the Transactions of the various scientific societies of which he was a member. He died suddenly at London, Jan. 10, 1833.