Background

Ethnicity: Balbiani’s father was German by birth but of Italian descent, who married a French Creole.

Édouard-Gérard Balbiani was born on July 31, 1823 at Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Balbiani’s father, German by birth but of Italian descent, married a French Creole and went to Haiti to set up a banking firm. While still young, Balbiani was sent to Frankfurt am Main, and about 1840 he went to Paris with his mother having settled there.

Education

Balbiani was educated first at Frankfurt am Main, and about 1840 he went to Paris to finish his studies. For a time Balbiani attended law school, but he was soon attracted by the natural sciences as they were being taught at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle by de Blainville.

Balbiani became licencié ès sciences naturelles in 1845 and docteur en médecine on 30 August 1854. His thesis, “Essai sur les fonctions de la peau considérée comme organe d'exhalation, suivi d’expériences physiologiques sur la suppression de cette fonction,” was on a far higher level than the usual medical thesis.

Career

After Balbiani became licencié ès sciences naturelles in 1845 and docteur en médecine on 30 August 1854, his financial situation made it possible not to practice medicine, but to devote himself entirely to microscopic studies. As early as 1858 he communicated the first results of his research to the Academy. Balbiani founded the Société de Micro–graphic and was a faithful member of the Société de Biologie and the secretary of the Journal de physiologie. He was already well known in 1867, when Claude Bernard, who often praised him, asked him to direct the histological research at the laboratory of general physiology at the Muséum. On 13 February 1874 he became professor of embryogeny at the Collège de France, a post he held for the rest of his life.

Balbiani’s work was extensive. His early research concerned protozoa, which at the time were subject to various interpretations. Some naturalists, following Ehrenberg, considered the infusoria as complete organisms with differentiated groups of organs. Others, such as Dujardin, saw in the protozoa only a mass of “sarcoda” without any organization whatever. These extreme views eventually were reconciled, but it is not possible to consider them here without outlining the history of protozoology. Balbiani discovered sexual reproduction in the ciliata, a finding that aroused much controversy until Biitschli confirmed Balbiani’s research and gave it its true interpretation. While studying the binary fission of the infusoria, Balbiani set forth its laws in 1861. This work led him to perform genuine microsurgical experiments that enabled him to specify the role of the nucleus.

Balbiani’s research on the formation of the sexual organs of the Chironomus demonstrated that the sexual cells derive directly from the egg and are differentiated before the blastoderm appears - and that consequently they precede the individual itself. This essential fact was later observed in other species and eventually was responsible for the general theory of the autonomy of the germ cell. Notice should also be made of Balbiani’s investigations on the reproduction of aphids and of his work on pebrine, the disease of the silkworm that later attracted Pasteur’s attention.

Balbiani is known eponymously through his research on cytoplasmic inclusions. He described in the yolks of young ovules a special formation that Milne-Edwards called the Balbiani vesicle (1867). This had already been pointed out by Julius Carus (1850) under the name “vitelline nucleus,” but Henneguy proposed calling it “corps vitellin de Balbiani” (1893). This body, interpreted by turns as a derivative of the centrosome or as an equivalent of the chondriome, has received new attention with the development of the electron microscope.

A solitary worker, Balbiani did not seek recognition through his lectures at the Collège de France. His publications were numerous, and with Ranvier he founded Archives d’anatomie microscopique, which is still published.

Achievements

• Balbiani`s major achievement was in his revolutionary study of concerned protozoa, which at the time were subject to various interpretations. His work led him to perform genuine microsurgical experiments that enabled him to specify the role of the nucleus. He also introduced the technique and the term “merotomy.” His successful findings led him to be appointed a head of the histological research at the laboratory of general physiology at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. Another Balbiani`s achievement was in being the founder of the Société de Micro–graphic and the Archives d'anatomie microscopique.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Leçons sur la génération des vertébrés 1879
  • Recherches Sur Les Phénomènes Sexuels Des Infusoires 1861
  • Lecons Sur Les Sporozoaires 1884

Membership

Balbiani was a member of the Société de Micrographie and was a faithful member of the Société de Biologie.

Personality

Balbiani had a personality of a solitary worker, who did not seek recognition.

Connections

Édouard-Gérard Balbiani had a daughter Laure Balbiani who in 1884 was married to psychologist Alfred Binet. Two daughters were born of this marriage, Madeleine (1885-1961) and Alice (1887-1938). They would later be known under the names of Marguerite and Armande after serving as subjects in the experiments conducted by Binet.

Daughter:

Laure Balbiani 1857-1922

son-in-law:

Alfred Binet

grand daughter:

Madeleine Balbiani 1885-1961

grand daughter:

Alice Balbiani 1887-1938

teacher:

Henri de Blainville

In Paris Balbiani studied natural sciences under famed zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (1777-1850).

colleague:

Louis-Antoine Ranvier

With anatomist Louis-Antoine Ranvier (1835-1922), Balbiani founded the Archives d'anatomie microscopique.

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  1970