Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton

Biography

He made his first studies with the College of Dijon. His/her father, Jean Daubenton, notary, intending it for the priesthood, send it to Paris to study the Théologie. But Louis Daubenton prefers to follow in secrecy the courses of Médecine and Anatomie. The death of his/her father in 1736 enables him to choose itself its career. In 1739, it goes to Rheims, becomes doctor of medicine in there 1741 and turns over in its birthplace to exert.

At the same time, Buffon, also native of Montbard and friend of childhood of Daubenton, the fact of calling near him, with the Garden of the king in 1742. Buffon has only little talent for the dissection and the anatomical study and it needs to be assisted in this matter. Buffon makes name Daubenton guard-demonstrator in 1745 with the Cabinet of the king, depend on the Jardin of the king (future national Muséum of natural history).

In spite of very different characters, the two men worked together during ten years with the update of the Natural history of the animals whose three volumes appear in 1749. Daubenton described nearly 200 species of Quadrupède S. These extremely precise descriptions can there be regarded as the starting point of the Comparative anatomy. It provides to the first 15 volumes of the articles of anatomical description, which are masterpieces of exactitude and which still form at the 19th century one of the bases of the comparative anatomy.

Buffon removes, at the time of a republication in reduced format of the Natural history , the parts devoted to the anatomy and the two men are annoyed. Daubenton is replaced then by Philippe Guéneau de Montbeillard, then, later still, by one of his/her cousins, Edmé-Louis Daubenton (1732-1786).

Daubenton is also at the origin of the rise of the Cabinet of curiosities of the king and transforms it into a true embryo of Natural history museum of natural history.

It is one of the first to apply the comparative anatomy with the fossil species and can thus refute the belief in the existence of the giants. Daubenton also refutes, thanks to the observation of the articulations of lower extremities, the fact that the Orang-outang can be a wild man. It becomes in 1778 professor of Natural history to the Collège de France. In 1783, he is professor of rural economy at the school of Alfort, and ensures in 1795 some lessons the teacher training schools. The same year, it is named member resident of the section of anatomy and zoology of the Academy of Science, where it had entered in 1744 like assistant botanist and to which it contributes a great number of memories. It is in addition one of the major contributors to the Encyclopédie or reasoned Dictionary of sciences, arts and the trades for which it writes more than 900 articles on the natural history.

Daubenton was also interested in the breeding and in particular in the improvement of the production of Laine and publishes in 1782 Instruction for the banks and the owners of herds . A few years earlier, it introduces in France a race of Mouton S Spanish, the Mérinos, it published several works on the manner of raising these animals. With Montbard, it is statufié, in the garden of Buffon, with sheep with its feet.

The French revolution makes Cabinet of the king the national Muséum of natural history and Daubenton its first director.

In December 1799, Daubenton is elected member of the Sénat and dies shortly after of the continuations of a crisis of Apoplexie. He dies in the night of the New Year's Eve.

As doctor, it recommended the pastilles of Ipecacuanha, which one called Pastilles of Daubenton. Mrs Daubenton is the author of the novel entitled Zélie in the desert .

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