Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton

Louis Jean -Marie Daubenton, actually d' Aubenton, (* May 29, 1716 in Montbard, Burgundy, † December 31, 1799 in Paris ( according to other data † January 1, 1800 ) ) was a French physician and naturalist.

Life

He studied at the University of Dijon. His father, Jean Daubenton (1669-1736), a notary and also encyclopedist had appointed him a priest and sent him to study theology to Paris where. His mother was the Virgin Mary Pichenot ( * ca 1680). His brother was a lawyer and politician Pierre Daubenton, who was active as a writer in the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d' Alembert -Baptiste.

He finished second in Paris secretly the subjects medicine and anatomy. It was not until his father's death in 1736 allowed him then to pursue his own professional qualifications further. 1739 he went to Reims, there was 1741 Docteur en médecine medical doctor and returned to his native city of Paris back to practice there.

Around the year 1742 began Georges- Louis Buffon, he also came from Montbar to realize his plan a great treatise on the natural history or General and specific history of nature, Histoire naturelle générale et particulière create. At the beginning he invited to support a Daubenton him by the anatomical descriptions for this work. In 1745 he was warden, and explainer, garde- démonstrateur at the Natural History Cabinet in Paris, Cabinet du roi, later Muséum national d' histoire naturelle.

For the section on the natural history of animals in the Encyclopédie méthodique (1782-1832) - it is a revision, extend and Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné redistribution of des sciences, des arts et des métiers by Denis Diderot and d' Alembert - Daubenton wrote the three dictionaries of quadrupeds and whales ( 1782 ) and the oviparous quadrupeds and serpents (1784 ), and the fish ( 1787).

A protégé of Daubenton was since 1765 in Paris studying medicine Vicq d' Azyr. Around the year 1770 he attended events in the Jardin du Roi. Vicq d' Azyr's married in 1773 but a niece Daubenton which died eighteen months later.

1783 Daubenton teacher of economics at the Veterinary School at the castle Alfort, École nationale d' Alfort vétérinaire near Paris, in 1795 professor of natural history at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and director of the Natural History Cabinet.

In December 1799 he became a member of the Senate, Senate conservateur (see also History of the French Senate ), but even when taking part in the first meeting he attended he fell from his seat. He suffered a stroke, the consequences of which he died in Paris after a short course of the disease on January 1, 1800. In 1799, also the chair of the department of natural history at the Collège de France was the serious illness of Daubenton, vacant, and it was none other than Georges Cuvier who was appointed to this responsible post.

Work

Daubenton delivered to the first five volumes of Buffon's Natural History anatomical posts. His studies on the improvement of wool production of sheep, published in his " Instruction pour les bergers " ( 1782 ), saved him from the persecutions of the French Revolution, by thus as the policy away standing presented itself and thus gave a safety certificate of the national convention.

After Daubenton named taxa

The scientific name of the Daubenton's bat (Myotis daubentonii ) and the finger animal ( Daubentonia madagascariensis ) goes back to Louis Jean -Marie Daubenton.

Works (selection)

  • Instruction pour les bergers et pour les propriétaires de Troupeaux. ( 1782 )
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