Click portrait to view at full size.

It was said of Retzius that students of the ear are forever indebted to him for his book on the vertebrate organ of hearing, the two volumes of which were published in 1881 and 1884. Retzius is shown in his diagram of the inner ear with the coiled cochlear and the three semicircular canals. Like many anatomists before him, his illustrations were initially produced by an artist but dissatisfaction with this procedure resulted in him making his own drawings.