Alcide d’Orbigny entre Cuvier et Lamarck

In the History of Science, Alcide d’Orbigny has the distinctive characteristic to be placed, between Cuvier and Lamarck, who were the two masters of Natural Science for most of the 19th century. It is in this historical context that Alcide d’Orbigny lived. Of Cuvier, he remembered ideas on disasters and species fixedness without using the same evidence, for he was not a vertebrist. Of Lamarck, he rejected the ideas on life continuity and species transformation while using the research field opened by the Zoology and Invertebrate Palaeontology founder. Alcide d’Orbigny’s originality was to use Lamarck’s Invertebrate fossils as evidence of the ideas that Cuvier had based on Vertebrate fossils.     

Conception et suites de la Paléontologie française d’Alcide d’Orbigny

The whole formed by his Paléontologie française, his Prodrome, and his Cours élémentaire, which are closely linked, constitutes one of the major parts of Alcide d’Orbigny’s scientific production, in which he exposed his concept of Palaeontology as a science closely related with Zoology and as an indispensable tool for Stratigraphy. The result was a remarkable impulsion for palaeontological and stratigraphical research, which from that time developed on new scientific foundations. Two annexes complete this communication, the first concerning the ‘Comité de la Paléontologie française’ (1860–1893), the second specifying the publication dates of four volumes of the Paléontologie française.     

Les travaux micropaléontologiques d’Alcide d’Orbigny

D’Orbigny has created the order of Foraminifera for minute animals classed, at this time, amongst Cephalopoda, and proposed the first classification of this order in 1826, laying the foundations of micropalaeontology. All along his life, he described, figured or clarified diagnosis of about 1500 recent and fossil species. His collections, stored in the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, represent an inestimable patrimony and are still actively consulted. Several micropalaeontologists had contributed to their valorisation and recognised the validity of most of his species. Nowadays, one hundred and two are considered as type species of genera.     

Alcide d’Orbigny et la Bolivie (1825–1857)

The evaluation of d’Orbigny’s contribution to Bolivian studies implies putting it in relation with the economic and political context prevailing before, during, and after his travel in this country, between 1830 and 1833. This paper deals with the following topics: the crisis of the silver mines in Potosi, the achievements of the governments of Santa Cruz (1829–1839) and Ballivián (1841–1847), and the various projects intending to open Bolivian lowlands to navigation and colonisation. Finally, some important documents show that d’Orbigny remains concerned with Bolivia many years after he returned to France.     

Alcide dˈOrbigny et les Rudistes

In the Paléontologie française (1850), Alcide dˈOrbigny described 78 species of Rudists found in geological beds in France.     

Cretaceous Bivalves and Alcide d’Orbigny

The main publications on Cretaceous Bivalves of Alcide d’Orbigny are the Paléontologie française – Terrains crétacés. III. Lamellibranches (1843–1847) and the Prodrome de stratigraphie universelle, vol. II (1850). The importance and influence of these publications for today’s taxonomic palaeontology are discussed. It is shown that the Paléontologie française continues to be one of the major 19th-century papers but that the Prodrome is only rarely referred to.     

Le « créationnisme » d’Alcide d’Orbigny et les fondements de la théorie biostratigraphique

D’Orbigny was more interested in the discontinuities of life history than in the origin of species. He looked for reference points to correlate geological strata and to reconstruct their history. This allowed him to formalise the concept of stratigraphic stage and to propose the first geological time scale. Therefore, one of the results was that he was unjustly considered as one of the leaders of the creationism school, because he used the ambiguous term ‘creation’ to designate the renewal of fauna after catastrophic events, but without providing a definition and with a meaning that was probably different from those of his successors.     

Alcide d’Orbigny,un précurseur dans l’étude de la faune du Danien du bassin de Paris

One of the major contributions of Alcide d’Orbigny to palaeontology is his work on the Danian of the Paris Basin. The Danian material includes well-preserved external imprints of Invertebrates. By making casting of these imprints, Alcide d’Orbigny inaugurated an original technique, which enabled him to describe more than 40 species. The question of the age of the Danian localities has long been debated since that time. It was settled once and for all in the seventies by micropalaeontologists.     

Liste inédite des Reptiles et Amphibiens récoltés par Alcide dˈOrbigny en Amérique méridionale

The complete list of Reptiles and Amphibians collected by dˈOrbigny in South America (Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia) is published for the first time. The list consists of six species of Chelonians, 26 of Saurians, 22 of Ophidians and 16 of Amphibians (one Gymnophiona and 15 Anura). In this list, 31 species were new and are still valid. The plates were published separately and prior to the publication of the ‘Reptiles’ chapter in the Voyage dans lˈAmérique méridionale, and sometimes before the corresponding volume of the Erpétologie générale of Duméril and Bibron 〚3〛. The publication dates of the plates change the known name, author(s) and dates of the several figured species.     

Nouvelles recherches sur la vitesse des vertébrés,auteurs de traces fossiles

This paper follows up on one published in Geobios1984, on the estimation of the velocity of trackmakers represented by fossil trackways.A simplification of the previously given formulaewill make it easier to calculate estimations of the lengths of «apparent limb, period and velocity of a walking animal. Observations show that the «walking angle decreases with the size of animals (in the case of a slow walk), the diminution being due to the exponential rising of the moment of inertia, a mathematical relation is proposed that links the «walking angle to the length of the radius of gyration i.e. the length of the «apparent limb. This relationship agrees with some datas from ichnology and with observations of living animals. With this equation and others presented here a table has been worked out which gives the estimates of «apparent limb, «walking angle, in terms of stride, estimates comprised in an interval of likelihood given by the coherent different values of the «walking angle. Velocity come from the pendular period. Interpolations from this table permit its utilization so for the values of the stride length distinct that presented.     

Recherches sur les mouvements des amibocytes des Invertébrés

Resumé Dans la première partie de ce travail, nous avons montré que, contrairement à la conception deFauré-Fremiet, les mouvements que présentent les amibocytes des Invertébrés à l'état actif ne peuvent s'expliquer par le seul jeu des forces de tension superficielle. Ces forces, si elles interviennent das le mécanisme du mouvement, ne peuvent en expliquer l'origine; l'amibocyte, tel qu'il est constitué, est un système inerte, incapable de se mouvoir sans apport d'énergie.Les faits exposés dans la seconde partie montrent qu'on peut dissocier physiologiquement le granuloplasme nucléé de l'hyaloplasme. Des coelamibocytes d:'Allobophora longa soumis à l'action de toxiques ou d'anesthésiques peuvent présenter des mouvements de leur hyaloplasme longtemps après que le granuloplasme nucléé a cessé toute activité fonctionnelle (mort ou anesthésie). Ces substances inhibent les activités complexes du granuloplasme, probablement les activités diastasiques, tout en conservant intactes les activités d'ordre plus simple qui président aux mouvements de l'hyaloplasme.     

Caractères physico-chimiques des choanoleucocytes de quelques Invertébrés

Sans résumé     

Alcide d’Orbigny (1802–1857) : sa vie et son œuvre

Numerous fields of Life and Earth Sciences as well as Human Sciences are indebted to Alcide d’Orbigny for his huge and innovating work. From his long journey in South America, he brought back a rich wealth of scientific collections and information related to Botany, Zoology, physical and human Geography, Geology, and Ethnography. Founder of Micropalaeontology, by his foraminiferal studies, and of Biostratigraphy, he is still present in Sciences today thanks to the numerous implications of his works in numerous domains of both academic research and economic sector.     

La détermination sérologique de la poliomyélite asymptomatique dans la famille

Résumé Dans 4 familles où se trouvait un malade atteint de poliomyélite on a examiné les sérums de la phase aiguë et de la phase de convalescence des malades et des autres membres de famille pour chercher la présence d'anticorps neutralisant trois souches du virus poliomyélitique (Lansing, SK et MM) et le virus de la chorioméningite lymphocytaire. Dans deux familles au moins, les recherches indiquent que les anticorps contre la souche Lansing ne se forment que comme conséquence spécifique d'une infection, éventuellement asymptomatique, par un virus poliomyélitique d'une structure antigène apparentée à celle de la souche Lansing. Dans une famille le sérum de la phase aiguë d'un malade et le sérum de sa mère, contenaient des anticorps tandis que le sérum de son père et d'une soeur ne neutralisait pas la souche Lansing. Dix semaines après, les sérums du père et de la soeur avaient obtenu un pouvoir neutralisant contre cette souche, bien que ni l'un ni l'autre n'aient été malades. Ceci pourrait indiquer la possibilité d'une infection par contact direct dans la famille.