MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History
Lions and Stray Cats: The Early Animal Projects of the Paris Academy of Sciences Anita Guerrini Oregon State University The founders of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1666 organized it into two sections, “physique” and “mathématique.” “Physique” encompassed chemistry, anatomy, and botany. The physician Claude Perrault quickly took charge and organized a research program in anatomy with two distinct sets of anatomical subjects but overlapping objectives. He followed along the lines of current research on the structure and function of the human body with a series of dissections of human cadavers and dead and live domestic animals including cats, pigs, dogs, and sheep. But he also took advantage of a supply of exotic animals originating in the royal menageries at Vincennes and Versailles and systematically dissected these animals when they died; among the first of these was a lion in 1667. These programs intersected not only at the level of their investigations into the structure and function of the body but also at the level of ongoing debates on animal cognition, intelligence, and awareness. The Paris Academy was overtly anti-Cartesian, and the views on animal sensibility and cognition of one of its early members, Marin Cureau de la Chambre, influenced Perrault’s program. Perrault was careful, for example, to note the existence of the pineal gland in each dissected animal. According to Descartes, the pineal gland was the seat of the soul and therefore should only exist in humans. Friday, September 17, 2010 2:30 to 4:30 pm Building E51 Room 095 Corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Streets, Cambridge Sponsored by MIT’s History Faculty and the Program in Science, Technology, and Society. For more information or to be put on the mailing list [email protected]
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