E-Book Content
The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate
Monographs on the History and Philosophy of Biology RICHARD BURIAN, RICHARD BURKHARDT, JR., RICHARD LEWONTIN, JOHN MAYNARD SMITH EDITORS
The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate: French Biology in the Decades Before Darwin TOBY A. APPEL
Controlling Life: Jacques Loeb and the Engineering Ideal in Biology PHILIP J. PAULY Beyond the Gene: Cytoplasmic Inheritance and the Struggle for Authority in Genetics JAN SAPP
The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate French Biology in the Decades Before Darwin
TOBY A. APPEL
New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1987
Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar cs Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Nicosia
Copyright © 1987 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-504138-0
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
To my family
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
Many individuals and institutions have contributed over the years to the making of this book. Theodore M. Brown introduced me to Cuvier and Geoffroy in his course on evolutionary biology over fifteen years ago, and has remained ever since a warm friend and advisor. John C. Greene and Frederic L. Holmes, by their strong encouragement, provided the initial impetus to undertake the project of expanding my earlier research into a monograph. With the assistance of a grant from the Secretary's Fund of the Smithsonian Institution, I was able to return to France to research manuscript material. I am especially grateful to the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine for providing the opportunity as a Hannah post-doctoral fellow to devote a full year to research and writing, and to Toby Gelfand at the University of Ottawa for his hospitality and friendship. Several people have read the manuscript at various stages in its evolution and provided valuable advice: Richard Burian, Richard Burkhardt, William Coleman, Robert Friedel, Gerald Geison, John C. Greene, Frederic L. Holmes, David Hull, Andrew Lugg, Dov Ospovat, Philip Pauly, and Jean Chandler Smith. Paul Israel, my former colleague at the Edison Papers, helped with my computer files until they could be transferred to Washington. Silvio Bedini, Kathryn Olesko, and Pauline Mazumdar assisted with languages. Although this book relied upon the resources of numerous libraries and the generous assistance of their staffs, I am particularly grateful to the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine where I was able to do most of the final checking of sources and quotations, often during lunch break from my work at the American Physiological Society. Jean Chandler Smith, who has been traveling to Paris to complete a bibliography of the writings of Cuvier, very kindly researched a few final sources and acted as intermediary to obtain microfilm and illustrations from the Bibliotheque Centrale of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. Working with Oxford University Press and Biology Editor William F. Curtis has been a pleasure throughout. I am most thankful for Jonathan Harrington's thorough copyediting and for his much-welcomed expertise in anatomy and zoology. Finally, there are two people whom I have relied upon from the beginning to the end of this project. I am greatly indebted to Gerald