Laurent Chabry (1855–1893) and the “Age d’or” of biology

Abstract

When, towards the end of his life, Eugène Bataillon (1864–1953) remembered the period around the turn of century, which was so rich in milestones of theoretical biology, he considered it the “âge d’or de la biologie” (Bataillon 1953, p. 384). He himself, the discoverer of traumatic parthenogenesis in the frog (1910) and an expert in the theory of fertilization, had made a substantial contribution to the image of biology in those years, owing to his elaboration of extremely refined methods of experimenting on the egg. The reasons for the embryologist’s invention of these experimental methods and the theoretical conclusions resulting from their application both originated in the 1880s. During those years comparative embryology, aiming at the genealogy of species, gave way to experimental embryology that disclosed cellular genealogies — the embryologists started moving from evolutionary to developmental problems. Laurent Chabry was among the scientists who forged that new biology, the “science nouvelle” that originated from experimental embryology, named biomécanique by Yves Delage (1854–1920) in 1895 and previously conceived by Wilhelm Roux (1850–1924) as Entwickelungsmechanik in 1884 (Sander 1991).

Editor’s note: The series of historical essays initiated in Vol. 200 of Roux’s Archives will be continued. While the general aim is to discuss classical data or methods in their historical context, the present essay is mainly biographical, because the author has recently discovered previously unknown documents, among them the first known portraits of Chabry.