He was born at Berthézène, in the communeofValleraugue (Gard), the son of a Protestant farmer. He studied science and then medicine at the University of Strasbourg, 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.[1]
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, weare already forgotten by the end of the century.[1]
Quatrefages was critical of Charles Darwin's theories but was not anti-evolution. From 1859 he corresponded with Darwin regularly and although they disagreed with each other they stayed on friendly terms.[3] Quatrefages authored Charles Darwin et ses précurseurs francais (1870), which contained criticism of Darwinism. On receiving the book, Darwin in a letter to Quatrefages commented that "many of your strictures are severe enough, but all are given with perfect courtesy & fairness. I can truly say I would rather be criticised by you in this manner than praised by many others."[3]
In his book L'Espèce humaine (translated The Human Species, 1879) he disputed the role of natural selection in evolution. Quatrefages proposed that natural "elimination" would have been a more exact term as natural selection does not create new species.[5]
The work of de Quatrefages ranged over the whole field of zoology from the annelids and other low organisms to the anthropoids and man. Of his numerous essays in scientific periodicals, the more important were:
Considérations sur les caractères zoologiques des rongeurs (1840)
De l'organisation des animaux sans vertèbres des Côtes de la Manche (Ann. Sc. Nat., 1844)
Recherches sur le système nerveux, l'embryognie, les organes des sens, et la circulation des annélides (Ibid., 1844–50)
Sur les affinités et les analogies des lombrics et des sangsues (Ibid.)
Sur l'histoire naturelle des tarets (Ibid., 1848–49)[8]
Then there is the vast series issued under the general title of Etudes sur les types inférieurs de l'embranchement des annelés, and the results of several scientific expeditions to the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlands, Italy and Sicily, forming a series of articles in the Revue des deux mondes, or embodied in the Souvenirs d'un naturaliste (2 vols., 1854).[9]
These were followed in quick succession by the:
Physiologie comparée, métamorphoses de l'homme et des animaux (1862)
Les Polynésiens et leurs migrations (1866)
Histoire naturelle des Annelés marins et d'eau douce (2 vols., 1866)
Crania Ethnica, jointly with Ernest Hamy (2 vols., with 100 plates, 1875–82), a classical work based on French and foreign anthropological data, analogous to the CraniaofJohn Thurnam and Joseph Barnard Davis, and to Samuel George Morton's Crania Americana and Crania Aegyptiaca.
Nouvelles études sur la distribution géographique des Négritos (1882)
Hommes fossiles et hommes sauvages (1884)
Histoire générale des races humaines (2 vols., 1886–89), the first volume being introductory, while the second attempts a complete classification of mankind.[9]
Les Pygmées: Avec 31 fig. intercalées dans le texte; Les Pygmées des anciens d'après la science moderne; negritos ou Pygmées asiatiques; Négrilles ou Pygmées africains; Hottentots et Boschismans (1887)
^ abcBurkhardt, Frederick. (2010). Introduction. In The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: Volume 18; Volume 1870. Cambridge University Press. pp. 21-22. ISBN978-0-521-76889-4
^Glick, Thomas F. (1988). The Comparative Reception of Darwinism. University of Chicago Press. pp. 147-148. ISBN0-226-29977-5
^Quatrefages de Bréau, Armand de. (1879). The Human Species. New York: D. Appleton and Company. pp. 94-95
^Delisle, Richard. (2006). Debating Humankind's Place in Nature, 1860-2000: The Nature of Paleoanthropology. pp. 59-60. ISBN978-0131773905
^Livingstone, David N. (2008). Adam's Ancestors: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 122-123. ISBN978-0-8018-8813-7
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Quatrefages de Bréau, Jean Louis Armand de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 723–724.
