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References
Georges Canguilhem,Etudes d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences (Paris, 1975), pp. 230–231.
H. Petersen, “Die Organe des Skelettsystems,” in W. von Möllendorff, ed.,Handbuch der mikroskopischen Anatomie des Menschen, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1930).
See E. Guyenot,Les sciences de la vie au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1957), p. 146: “Duhamel du Monceau, who had the idea of mixing madder with the feed of young animals, succeeded in coloring bone layers as they formed and thus demonstrated the role of the periosteum in bone growth.”
Cf. Lucien Plantefol, “Duhamel du Monceau,”Dix-huitième siècle, no. 1 (1969), p. 133: “Bone does not grow by intussusception: if it did, it would have turned red throughout. It is the external covering of the bone, the periosteum, which consists of detachable, living flesh, that secretes layer upon layer of bone during the period of growth, much as a layer external to the wood of the tree, itself of a nature different from the wood, produces circle upon circle of wood within the heart of the tree.”
Cf. François Delaporte,Nature's Second Kingdom, trans. A. Goldhammer (Cambridge, Mass., 1981).
Albrecht von Haller,Deux mémoires sur la formation des os (Lausanne, 1758), pp. 1–2.
G. Desinnocents,Ostéologie ou histoire générale des os (Bordeaux, 1604). Desinnocents, a surgeon in Toulouse, died in about 1650.
Galen and, even more, Hippocrates believed that the bone was nourished by the marrow: “Themarrow, as Hippocrates remarked, is the bone's nourishment; it is thanks to the marrow that callus forms in a fractured bone.” Hippocrates, “De l'aliment,”Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate, trans. E. Littré, vol. 9, p. 121. Aristotle, on the other hand, believed that it it was the blood: “From the first stages of organ development, the nature of the bones is shaped by the spermatic residue, and, as the animal grows, the bone matter is increased by what it receives from natural nourishment.”De generatione animalium 2.6.744b. Charles Guillemeau, surgeon and dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1634, considered these divergent views in hisOstéomyologie ou discours des os des muscles du corps humain (Paris, 1618).
J.-G. Duverney,Oeuvres anatomiques (Paris, 1751), vol. 1, p. 330. Duverney (1648–1730) was an anatomist and member of the Académie Royale des Sciences.
J.-J. Courtial,Nouvelles observations anatomiques sur les os (Paris, 1705), pp. 9–10. Courtial was professor of anatomy at Toulouse.
See J.-B. Verduc,Nouvelle osteogénie (Paris, 1689), p. 10. Verduc, who died in 1703, was a physician and surgeon. See also J. Palfin,Nouvelle ostéologie ou description exacte des os du corps humain (Paris, 1731), p. 36. Palfin (1650–1730) was a Belgian anatomist and surgeon.
John Belchier, “An Account of the Bones of Animals Being Changed to a Red Colour by Aliment Only,”Phil. Trans., 39 (1736), 287–288. Belchier (1706–1785) was a disciple of Cheselden, a surgeon, and a member of the Royal Society.
John Belchier, “A Further Account of the Bones of Animals Being Made Red by Aliment Only,”Phil. Trans., 39, p. 300: “The first I made was upon a cock, by mixing some of the Madder root with Fig dust, on which they feed. The cock dying within sixteen days after his first feeding on the Madder, I dissected him, and examined the bones, not in the least expectation of finding them ting'd in so small time; but, to my great surprise found them universally of a red colour: so that, from this experiment, it appears, that the Madder alone causes this alteration.” In February 1737 a Mr. Geoffroy communicated this observation to the Academy in an excerpt from a letter sent him by Sir Hans Sloane. Dyers use madder (the root ofRubia tinctorum) on cotton fabrics treated with a ferrous preparation (purple-black) and a mixture of alum and “Saturn's sugar.” Duhamel repeated the same experiment, but on other animals (chickens, pigeons, and pigs), and obtained the same results as Belchier.
Duhamel du Monceau, “Sur une racine qui a la propriété de teindre en rouge les os des animaux vivants,”Mem. Acad. Sci., 1739, p. 5.
Ibid.
Duhamel du Monceau, “Troisième mémoire”,Mem. Acad. Sci., 1742, p. 365.
Plantefol is quite right to point out that the choice of a pig as the experimental subject was a happy one: “The animal used was a pig, which grows quickly and can withstand the ingestion of madder far better than birds”. Plantefol, “Duhamel du Monceau”, p. 132.
Duhamel du Monceau, “Premier mémoire”,Mem. Acad. Sci., 1741, p. 98. On p. 110 we read: “My experiments with the repair of trees were of great use in helping me to understand the healing of fractures. In order to make clear the extent of the analogy in this regard between plants and animals, it would be necessary to recount the many experiments and observations I carried out with respect to the healing of tree injuries”.
Ibid., p. 105.
Duhamel du Monceau, “Recherches sur la formation des couches ligneuses dans les arbres”,Mem. Acad. Sci., 1751, p. 24. Marcello Malpighi, “Anatomes plantarum Idea”,Opera Omnia, 1672. Malpighi lived from 1628 to 1694.
Duhamel du Monceau, “Troisième mémoire”, p. 364.
Ibid., p. 361.
Ibid., p. 368.
Duhamel du Monceau, “Quatrième mémoire sur les os”,Mem. Acad. Sci., 1743, p. 102.
Ibid., p. 108.
Ibid., p. 102.
Condorcet, “Duhamel du Monceau”,Eloges des académiciens (Paris, 1799), vol. 3, p. 176.
Toussaint Bordenave (1728–1782) was a member of the Royal Academy of Surgery.
Auguste-Denis Fougeroux de Bondary (1732–1789) was a member of the Académie des Sciences, as well as Duhamel's nephew and champion and the author ofMémoires sur les os: pour servir de réponse aux objections proposées contre le sentiment de M. Duhamel du Monceau (1760).
von Haller,Deux mémoires, pp. 2–3. The same observation occurs on p. 251: “The periosteum covers the bone, much as quite similar membranes cover the viscera”.
Ibid., pp. 2–3. On pp. 254–255 we find a similar remark concerning callus formation: “In callus formation in bones, one finds the same relation between redness and rigidity. They are inextricably linked, and no nucleus ever attains the osseous stage without first taking on a reddish color”.
Ibid., p. 118.
Ibid., p. 253.
Ibid., p. 248.
Ibid., p. 249.
Ibid., pp. 246–247.
Fougeroux,Mémoires, p. 35.
On this subject, see the interesting article by Shirley A. Roe, “The Development of Albrecht von Haller's Views on Embryology”,J. Hist. Biol., 8, (1975), 167–190.
C. Bonnet,Considérations sur les corps organisés (Amsterdam, 1776), vol. 1, p. 211.
Lawson Tait,L'inutilité de l'expérimentation sur les animaux (London, 1882), p. 7.
Duhamel du Monceau, “Premier mémoire”, p. 98.
Michele Troja,Expériences sur la regénération des os, French trans. (Paris, 1890). Troja (1747–1827) was the author ofDe novorum ossium in integris ant maxime ob morbis deperditionibus regeneratione experimenta, (Paris, 1775).
“Expériences et observations sur le développement des os, d'après les manuscripts de J. Hunter”,Oeuvres, vol. 4, pp. 292–293. On p. 409 the translator writes: “J. Hunter's observations on the growth of bones were frequently mentioned in the lectures from 1772 on”.
Cf. Vladislav Kruta, “Flourens, Marie-Jean-Pierre”, in C. C. Gillespie, ed.,Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York, 1972), vol. 5, p. 45.
Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens,Théorie experimentale de la formation des os (Paris, 1847), pp. 1–2.
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Delaporte, F. Theories of osteogenesis in the eighteenth century. J Hist Biol 16, 343–360 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00582406
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00582406