History of the natural history

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The history of the natural history paints a picture of the evolution of the design of the world and nature by the scientists. The term Natural history recover several current disciplines: the Biology, the Geology, the Zoology, the Botanical , the Medicine but also the Paleontology, the Astronomy, the Physical and the Chemistry. Antiquity with the Rebirth, all the fields of the natural history were confused under the name of Scala naturæ (or Large chain of the life). The Philosophy of nature and the natural Théologie extended to the conceptual bases from the animal life and vegetable while endeavouring to answer the question of the existence of the organizations and while trying to explain operation of it.

Definitions of the natural history

One calls natural history the knowledge of the things, which are produced in the Universe, and which the men can discover by the directions. Between all sciences which were cultivated by the industry of the men this one always passed with reason for one of the principales. It is the definition which gives Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738) in the foreword of the Botanicon Parisiense of Sebastien Vaillant (1669-1722).

Prehistory

The natural history begins with the paintings from the caves from Altamira and Lascaux between 50  000 and 100  000 years before our era. The representation of the animals which the prehistoric men drove out show that the latter had anatomical designs.

The knowledge of nature develops little by little according to its applications in the daily life (in particular for the food and the care), in particular by the accumulation of a knowledge on the plants which are appropriate for the food or present risks of toxicity, then with the invention of agriculture, the domestication of the animal first and the appearance of a still primitive medicine.

Other scientific cultures

China, Latin America and Andean, people known as first, etc

  • the beginnings of the Ornithologie cannot be dated with precision but of the texts among oldest certain aspects of the behavior of the birds quote. It is in particular the case of the Yi King Chinese (great classic already considered as extremely old at the time of Confucius to the Life front century J. - C.) which evokes the Faucon S and the Oie S and of the vedic Indian Chants (of which certain parts could go up at the XIXe front century J. - C. even beyond) which mention the Parasitisme Coucou.

  • By their knowledge plants intensive agriculture, the Papous managed to make remain the company densément populated of the highlands of New Guinea during millenia without destroying the environment of it nor to cause irremediable deforestation. For that purpose, they in particular developed techniques worked out as regards Paillis, of Irrigation, rotation of crops and Sylviculture.

  • the INCA S had also a good knowledge of the plants. With Moray, in current Peru, one found artificial terraces laid out in circle concentric, designed to give to each level a particular temperature and probably used to study the effect of the climatic variations on cereals, tubers and other plants being used for the food. The studies undertaken with Moray would have made it possible the incas to lay down the agricultural outputs, like crossing and improving of many species of plants.

  • Shen Kuo (1031-1095) was a scholar and scientific Chinese who was interested in particular in the Fossile S, using its observations on the matter to justify a geological theory of the formation of the continents.

  • Li Shizhen (1518-1593) was a doctor, herbalist and Chinese naturalist in particular known like the author of the Grand Treaty of Medical Matter , a vast illustrated medical encyclopedia comprising the description of 1094 species of plants, 444 animal species and 275 minerals.

Western antiquity

The scientific approach of nature makes its appearance with the Greek philosopher Aristote (384 av. J. - C. - 322 av J. - C.) which devotes many treaties to the animal world, in particular Parties the Animals where it tackles the question of the classification of the animals by kind and species. After Aristote, other scientific work becomes possible in the fields which concern the natural history.

  • Théophraste (v.372 front J. - C. - front Av.287 J. - C.): Greek philosopher and large specialist in the plants. He is the first to make botany a discipline with whole share. Its Histoire of the plants treats morphology and classification of the plants. Another of its works, Causes of the plants , tackles questions of vegetable physiology, like the growth and the reproduction.

  • Pline Old the (23-79): Roman naturalist of which the Natural history mark true beginnings of the discipline of the same name. This work, monumental encyclopedia in 37 volumes, remained a long time the reference as regards scientific knowledge and techniques. Pline compiled the knowledge of its time there on subjects as varied as the natural science, astronomy, anthropology, psychology or the metallurgy.

  • Dioscoride (v. 40-v. 90): Greek doctor whose Of materia medica describes the properties of many medicinal plants.

  • the Physiologos is a Greek bestiary probably going back to the 2nd century. It treats properties of the animals, birds and stones.

  • Élien (v. 175-v. 235): speaker and Roman naturalist of Greek language. The 17 pounds of its Caractéristiques of the animals ( ÉÆÉ√Éœ› ɧÒÉ÷ÉÀ ÉßÉ¬É “fi É-É≈É-ÉÕV ) compile anecdotes on 70 species of mammals, 109 species of birds, about fifty reptiles and approximately 130 fish.

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  • Albert Large the (v. 1200-1280) is the author of a vast treaty, the Of animalibus , devoted not only to fauna, but also to the flora and minerals.

  • Thomas de Cantimpré (1201-1272), whose De Naturis Rerum is a compilation of the knowledge of the time in natural history.

Rebirth

One of the most important factors in the diffusion and the advances in knowledge at the 15th century is the development of the Imprimerie by Gutenberg towards 1450. The first impression of a book devoted to the natural history goes up at least with 1475. It relates to an illustrated version of the Buch der Natur written by Konrad von Megenberg at the previous century.

Birth of botany

Otto Brunfels (v. 1488-1534), that Carl von Linné calls the father of botany , makes appear in 1530 and 1536 its Herbarum vivae icons . In this work, illustrated very good engravings on wood, Brunfels describes all the plants which he knows. It begins its descriptions of the list of name of the place in various languages, followed quotations of old authors. It ends up giving its clean judgment on the plant and its capacities , the work having, that all the books of botany of the time, a therapeutic vocation. The organization of its book is very close to that of Conrad Gessner (1516-1565) on the animals. Fuchs however does not adopt any system of classification and it starts with the Plantain “because it is common and parce more than any other plant it carries the testimony of divine omnipotence”.

Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566) made appear, in 1542, its important work Historia Stirpium where it describes more than 400 species. Its superb illustrations will be very often taken again thereafter. It describes each plant according to a preset diagram: it evokes its form, then its inhabitant, his seasonal variation (at which time the plant must be gathered), its temperament , its capacities. The species presented are it according to a strict alphabetical order. It should be noted that it describes decorative plants which do not have any therapeutic use.

Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603) can be regarded as that which makes botany an autonomous science. Manifest Cesalpino of the varied interests and studies, in addition to botany, the anatomy, mineralogy and the metallurgy. It follows the Aristotélicien model perfectly in its principal work De Plantis . It breaks with the tradition of the herbalists like Brunfels. It analyzes the forms thus comparatively anatomical, it provides the definitions of its concepts. He wonders about the difference between the plants and the animals: he establishes comparisons between the bodies of nutrition of the plants (roots) and the animals (the stomach and intestines). The system of Cesalpino is the first with being truly based on the comparative study of the anatomical forms.

Prospero Alpini (1553-1617) shows into 1592 that the palm tree needs Pollen to be fertilized.

Gaspard Bauhin (1560-1624) realizes, with its Prodromus and its Pinax theatri botanici , the first critical attempt at compilation of botanical knowledge. Without relationship to the system of Cesalpino, it follows the tradition of Fuchs rather. It gathers the plants according to their affinities: it gives neither the characteristics of these groups nor does not name them. Only the individual plants are described by short and concise diagnoses.

like the founding document of the Mycology .

Work founder in botany and zoology of J. Ray and F. Willughby

John Ray (1627-1705) and Francis Willughby (1635-1672) plays a crucial role as well in botany as in zoology during this period. In botany, Ray makes appear a Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (Cambridge, 1660), or Catalogs plants of the surroundings of Cambridge. The work is very innovator compared to the other British botanical publications. It will constitute establishes new standards which will be followed by many botanists to Europe. Ray makes appear in London in 1670 a work of the same kind but on the British flora: Catalogus plantarum Angliae , a version enriched by the work appears in 1690 in London under the title of Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum . In 1682, Ray gathers various tests on botany in Methodus plantarum nova, work revised in 1703 pennies the title of Methodus emendata . It makes appear, as from 1686 and until 1704, a very vast work on the European flora where it describes 18.000 species: Historia plantarum .

In zoology, Ray is the first to propose a classification of the animals based on anatomical and nonbehavioral or environmental criteria. Its classification, in particular of the birds, is most advanced to the work of Linné.

The untimely death of Willughby prevents it from completing several works that Ray will enrich (sometimes considerably) and will publish under the only name of Willughby. It is the case of Ornithologia (London, 1676) and of Of historia piscium (Oxford, 1686). Among the principal works of Ray, it is necessary to announce Synopsis animalium quadrupedum and serpentini generis (London, 1693). Several of its works appear in a posthumous way like Historia insectorum in London in 1710 or Synopsis avium and piscium always in London in 1713.

Projections in biology and the use of the microscope

It should be noted that the Biologie will become a truly autonomous discipline of the natural history only during the 19th century with the rise of the use of the modern microscopes. Second half of the 18th century is marked by the publication of many extremely innovative work, some made possible by the invention of the Microscope. This one is probably gone back to 1590 and is sometimes allotted to Zacharias Jansen (v. 1580-v. 1638).

  • Francesco Redi (1626-1697)

  • Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), the father of the microscopic anatomy or histology, whose name is attached today to tens of structures in the human body and in the insects, also publishes work in botany in its work titrated Anatome plantarum on the cellular anatomy of the plants and studies the vegetable embryology.
  • Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)
  • Robert Hooke (1635-1703)
  • Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680)

Girolamo Fabrizi d' Acquapendente (1537-1619) is interested particularly in the embryonic development of the animals. Its research is supplemented by one of its pupils, Hieronymus Fabricius (1537-1619), which studies the embryonic development of chickens.

William Harvey (1578-1657) discovers blood circulation in 1616.

The first works on the insects are dated from the whole beginning of the XVIIe century. Thomas Muffet (v. 1552-1604), doctor and naturalist English, makes appear post-mortem, in 1634, the Theatrum Insectorum , entirely delivers devoted to the insects (term which indicates indeed the insects but also many other invertebrates). Charls Butler (1559-1647) made appear in 1609 the first entirely delivers devoted to the bees.

18th century

Progress in biology

Joseph Guichard Duverney (1648-1730) made appear at the beginning of the 18th century several memories important in front of the Academy of Science of Paris on the circulatory and respiratory systems of Vertebrate S with cold blood like frogs, the snakes, etc

In 1720, Michael Bernhard Valentini (1657-1729) made appear a study where it compares the anatomy of different vertebrate.

In 1734, Jacob Theodor Klein (1685-1759) made appear Naturalis dispositio Echinodermatum , work pionnière on the sea urchin S.

Botany

Valiant Sebastien (1669-1722), French botanist, publishes post-mortem, after having lengthily worked on the reproduction of the plants, the Botanicon Parisiense (or Dénombrement alphabetically of the plants which develops around Paris ) in 1727 via Hermann Boerhaave. This work is one of the first to describe the flora of the neighborhoods of Paris.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), celebrates writer and German scientist, publishes, in 1790, a test on the metamorphosis of the plants, Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären , in which it established a general theory on the morphology of the plants by recognizing the analogy of certain forms like the cotyledons, the shape of the flowers or the sheets. It also outlines a theory of the evolution at the plants and connects morphology with phylogeny. This vision is very advances some on the ideas generally held on the plants at its time. It is thus one of the first (and perhaps the first) to employ the term of metamorphosis in botany.

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Réaumur

Entomology obtains its noble letters with Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683-1757). Member of the Academy of Science in 1708, it leads experiments in a great number of the subjects, most known being the development of a thermometer and his work on earthenware. He makes appear, of 1734 to 1742, six volumes of the Mémoires to be used for the history of the insects . He specifies in his introduction the reasons of his publication: We, at, did not arrive much near yet at the time when one will be able reasonably to undertake a general history of the insects. Scientists of all the country have been more for one century studied them. The attention that they gave them us was worth a great number of sure and curious observations. However, it of is necessary well that it still of gathered of it there enough. The number of the observations necessary for a history of so much of small animals passably complete is prodigieux. It then points out the number of the insects is extraordinary. From the twelve to thirteen thousand plants known at its time, it announces that each one maintains the hundreds of species different insects, that those are the prey of predatory private individuals. This ecological analysis of the biodiversity is very in advance over its time. It continues: The vastness of the works of nature better nowhere does not appear that in the innumerable multiplicity of so much of small species animaux. After having noticed that the diversity of the insects is such as no spirit could make the turn of it, it announces that it is especially useful to know the principal forms of them. It justifies also the interest and the importance of the study of the insects: Though we tighten much limit study of the history of the insects, it is people who will find that we still leave him the too wide ones. It is the same which looks at all knowledge of this part of the natural history like useless, which treats them, without hesitating, of recreations frivoles. Réaumur makes then the list of the contributions which can carry out what does not name yet entomology: wax and honey brought by bees (honey which was the sweetened independent source of the time), dyes drawn from the cochineal, figs whose ripening depends on the insects… It also states that the knowledge of the insects makes it possible to fight them.

Its Mémoires often resembles monographs. Volume IV is entirely dedicated to three species of cicada. It describes the external anatomy, the bodies oral, the oviposition, the production of stridulement, the laying, etc Réaumur particularly studies the bees, which it baptizes its expensive small people . For better observing the behavior of the bees, it is the first to design a hive comprising a system of pane, a shutter makes it possible to protect the interior of the hive from the light, Réaumur only raising it to make its observations.

The 18th century is one period the study of the ravageurs of the cultures starts to emerge. One can quote in particular the work of Italian Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (1712-1783).

Pupils and correspondents of Réaumur

Charles Bonnet (1720-1793) made appear in 1745 its observations on the Parthenogenesis of the Plant louse S.

Buffon

In his writings (in particular its Natural histories ), the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon (1707-1788) largely contributed to popularize the natural history near his contemporaries. He was also the intendant of the Jardin of the king between 1739 and 1788.

Linné

The Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné (1707-1778) played a crucial role, in particular by his descriptions of several tens of thousands of species and the introduction of the nomenclature binominale. Its classification of the plants is based inter alia on work of Rudolf Jakob Camerarius (1665-1721) on the sexuality of the plants.

The rise of the natural history and the introduction of the linneism in Europe

The example of Austria-Hungary at the 18th century

The empress Marie-Therese (1717-1780) decides to do of Austria-Hungary one of the hearths of European science. She entrusts to her personal doctor and protected, Gerald van Swieten (1700-1772), of origin Dutchwoman, the care to organize not only the department of health of the country but also the university. Several foreign naturalists are then invited to come to work in the country. The outstanding figure of its emigrated is the naturalist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727-1817), also of Dutch origin, raises Adriaan van Royen (1704-1779) and of Bernard de Jussieu (1699-1777). It will be one of the leaders of the diffusion of the system linnéen. It is also necessary to evoke the figure of the French of origin, but Austrian of adoption Belsazar Hacquet (1739-1815), which traverses the empire and carries out very important observations as well on the people as on geology or the natural history. The countries pertaining to the crown also contribute to the scientific rise of the country like Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723-1788), which although Italian of culture will play a great part in the diffusion of the linneism, or the Hungarian József Jakab Winterl (1739-1809). But this review would not be complete if some purely Austrian personalities were not evoked, with the modern direction, like Franz Xaver von Wulfen (1728-1805) or Heinrich Johann Nepomuk von Crantz (1722-1797).

The example of Russia and the work of P.S. Pallas

The majority of the contributors to Russian science are of foreign origin and come mainly from Germany. The voyages of these naturalists in Central Asia, in Siberia, in the Caucasus or in the Crimea make discover the fauna and the flora of its immense areas. One can quote the names according to: Johann Peter Falck (1727-1774), Johann Gottlieb Georgi (1729-1802), Ivan Lepekhin (1740-1802), Johann Anton Güldenstädt (1745-1781), Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (1744-1774). One can add to the next century: Alexander von Bunge (1803-1890), Friedrich Ernst Ludwig von Fischer (1782-1854), Karl Friedrich von Ledebour (1785-1851), Friedrich August Marschall von Bieberstein (1768-1826), Carl Anton Andreevic von Meyer (1795-1855), Friedrich August Marschall von Bieberstein (1768-1826), Christian von Steven (1781-1863), Edouard Ménétries (1802-1861)… The first Russian voyage around the world, 1803-1808, account a German naturalist, Wilhelm Gottlieb von Tilesius von Tilenau (1769-1857).

Among those, it is necessary to make a place particular to Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811). After a long voyage in Central Asia, from 1768 to 1774, Pallas returns to Saint-Pétersbourg where it occupies a central place with the royal Academy of sciences of Pétersbourg Saint, in particular because it is a close relation of the empress Catherine II (1729-1796). In addition to the publication of the reports of the voyages and the analysis of the collected specimens, one owes him a kind of synthesis between the system of Linné and the approach of Buffon. It has the appearance of an innovator by the study of the geographical variations. For him, the species are not fixed definitively, they can see their appearance evolving/moving in particular under the action of the climatic factors.

The foundation of the national Natural history museum of natural history of Paris

The national Muséum of natural history is a research and educational establishment instituted under the French revolution by a decree of June 10th 1793. It is created by reorganizing old the Jardin of the king, a botanical garden founded in Paris in 1635 and whose Buffon had been the intendant of 1739 to 1788.

Birth of the North-American natural history

John Bartram (1699-1777) is an especially known self-educated botanist to have collected a great number of new plant species while travelling through the North America. He is also the founder of oldest the Botanical garden of what was going to become the the United States.

Scientific voyages

  • the measurement of the arc of the Méridien by the Academy of Science gives place, between 1735 and 1737, with the organization of two scientific exhibitions in Lapland and with the Peru. The botanist Joseph de Jussieu (1704-1779) takes part in the forwarding led to Peru.

  • the double Transit of Venus of 1761 and 1767 is the occasion to organize great voyages around the world. Among those, the first voyage ordered by James Cook (1728-1779) on board the Endeavor . Several naturalists take part in it like Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) or Daniel Solander (1733-1782).

19th century

During this century, work of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck , Charles Darwin , Claude Bernard , Louis Pasteur and Gregor Mendel constitutes the bases of biology scientific, evolutionary, experimental and applied. However, in spite of great theoretical syntheses, the science of this time continues to stammer in front of the fundamental questions on the man and living it.

The rise and the golden age of the natural history musea

Chronology of the appearance of the natural history musea of national importance

The 19th century can really be regarded as the golden age of the creation of the Muséum S. During this century, the majority of the big cities obtain such institutions. The number of natural history musea then appreciably will decrease at the 20th century because of a whole series of factors: change of nature of the leisures, retreat of the leisures and the scientific collections, increasing urbanization, appearance of the modern media facilitating the access to the knowledge of the natural world…

Theories of the evolution

Lamarck and transformism

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829) is the first to systematize the idea of a transformation of the species and to give a coherent talk of it.

The theory of the evolution by the natural selection

In the Origin of the species which it publishes in 1859, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) develops a theory of the evolution of the species, founded on the principle of the Natural selection.

Comparative anatomy

  • Edward Tyson (1650-1708) regarded as one of the fathers of the comparative anatomy. It makes appear in 1699 a work on the comparative anatomy between monkeys and the human being.
  • Georges Vat (1769-1832)

The golden age of the illustration naturalist

Biology with the service of the comprehension of the world

  • Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876) studies the Embryologie Mammifère S.
  • modern biology starts with Louis Pasteur (1822-1895). Its scientific work, really gigantic, poses the bases of some of the major disciplines of the biology of the 20th century in particular microbiology, virology, bacteriology, immunology, metabolic biochemistry and the studies on the origin of life. The glory of Pasteur rests primarily on the results of its applied research. Indeed, he discovered the omnipresence of the bacterial germs in nature and proposed sterilization partial of the food (pasteurization), the surgical asepsis and hygiene to fight against the harmful effects of the pathogenic microbes.

The emergence of the conscience of the threats on the environment

The voyages of George Catlin (1796-1872) in the west of the United States make him become aware of the threats on nature. It is the first to imagine the creation of large national parks.

Gregor Mendel and beginnings of the genetics

About 1865, the Czech monk Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) starts artificially to fertilize white Pea flowers with Pea pollen with red flowers and to observe the color of Peas of the following generations. He thus poses the bases of a new science, the genetics.

20th century

The structure in double helix of the DNA

In 1953, appears in the English review Nature , the biological publication most revolutionary since the Origin of the species of Charles Darwin. This short publication presents the model in double helix for the structure of the desoxyribonucleic Acid or DNA and draft in some lines the genetic consequences of this structure. It is the fact of two young researchers, English Francis Crick (1916-2004) and American James Watson (born in 1928). This work was worth the to them Nobel Prize of physiology or medicine in 1962.

Recognition of the ethology

With the development of biology and its many applications in the daily life, the traditional disciplines naturalists appear obsolete. Many countries restrict during decades the appropriations assigned to those. The attribution of the Nobel Prize of physiology or medicine in 1973 to three ethologists (Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen) gives a blow of projector on the zoological studies and will return a certain credit to these activities.

The contribution of the genetics for classification: the example of the birds

The Taxinomie Sibley-Ahlquist rests on hybridizations of DNA " in vitro ". Completely upsetting preceding classifications of the birds, it today is followed still rather little in the French-speaking world at least.

Environnementalism

The practice of the natural history will be completely upset by the awakening of the environmental problems. Several stages are significant:
  • 1952 : publication of Silent Spring of Rachel Carson (1907-1964) which denounces the impact of the DDT on the wild life.
  • 1985 : appearance of the term of Biodiversity.

Today

Very fast progress of biology and the disciplines which of it result, like the Biotechnologie S and the genic Thérapie, raises great hopes but also interrogations Bioéthique S even of the oppositions.

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