Armand de Quatrefages
| Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau | |
|---|---|
Armand de Quatrefages
|
|
| Born |
10 February 1810 Berthézène, Valleraugue |
| Died | 2 January 1892 (aged 81) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Fields | |
| Institutions |
Lycée Napoléon French Academy of Sciences Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle Royal Society of London |
Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau (10 February 1810 – 12 January 1892) was a French biologist.
He was born at Berthézène, in the commune of Valleraugue (Gard), the son of a Protestant farmer. He studied medicine at Strasbourg and then Science, where he took the double degree of M.D. and D.Sc., one of his theses being a Théorie d'un coup de canon (November 1829); next year he published a book, Sur les arolithes, and in 1832 a treatise on L'Extraversion de la vessie. Moving to Toulouse, he practised medicine for a short time, and contributed various memoirs to the local Journal de Médecine and to the Annales des sciences naturelles (1834—36). But being unable to continue his research in the provinces, he resigned the chair of zoology to which he had been appointed, and in 1839 settled in Paris, where he found in Henri Milne-Edwards a patron and a friend.
Elected professor of natural history at the Lycée Napoléon in 1850, he became a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1852, and in 1855 was appointed to the chair of anthropology and ethnography at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Other distinctions followed rapidly, and continued to the end of his otherwise uneventful career, the more important being honorary member of the Royal Society of London (June 1879), member of the Institute and of the Academie de médecine, and commander of the Legion of Honor (1881). He died in Paris.
He was an accurate observer and unwearied collector of zoological materials, gifted with remarkable descriptive power, and possessed of a clear, vigorous style, but somewhat deficient in deep philosophic insight. Hence his serious studies on the anatomical characters of the lower and higher organisms, man included, will retain their value, while many of his theories and generalizations, especially in the department of ethnology, are already forgotten.
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