Background

Guillaume Rondelet was born on September 27, 1507, in Montpellier, France. Rondelet was the son of a drug and spice merchant who died while Guillaume was a child, leaving him to be brought up by an elder brother.

Education

In 1525 Rondelet went to study humanities in Paris but in June 1529 transferred to the Medical Faculty at Montpellier, where he was a procurator in 1530 and became friendly with Rabelais, whose character Rondibilis may be based on him. After gaining practical experience as a physician and schoolteacher in Pertuis (Vaucluse), he returned to Paris in the mid-1530s to study anatomy under Johannes Guinter. Rondelet then practiced for a time at Maringues, Puy de Dome, after which he returned to Montpellier, where he graduated with his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1537.

Career

Rondelet was effectively supported by his wife’s elder sister until June 1545, when he was appointed regius professor of medicine at Montpellier.

In addition to this post, during the 1540s Rondelet was a personal physician to Francois Cardinal Tournon, whom he accompanied on visits to Antwerp and to Bordeaux, Bayonne, and other towns on the southwest coast of France, where he learned something of the local whaling industry. In 1549 he went by sea to Rome with the cardinal, for the election of Pope Julius III. On the way home, he visited Venice and the university towns of northern Italy. In 1551 Rondelet left the cardinal's service and returned to Montpellier, where he was elected chancellor of the university in 1556. It was probably at his initiative that the university set up its first anatomy theater in the same year.

In 1554-1555 Rondelet published Libri de piscibus mar inis in quibus verae piscium effigies expressae sunt; the second part is entitled Universae aquatilium historiae pars altera. A French translation, L'liistoire entiere des poissons, possibly by his pupil Laurent Joubert, appeared in 1558. In his own day Rondelet was almost as well known as an anatomist as a zoologist. A popular lecturer, Rondelet attracted scholars from all over Europe: Coiter and Bauhin; L’Ecluse; L’Obel, who inherited his botanical manuscripts; and Daleschamps, Gesner, and Aldrovandi also studied briefly under him.

The main title of Rondelet’s great work is a misnomer, and that of the second part should be applied to the whole; in fact, the book covers the whole of freshwater as well as marine zoology, and it is not restricted to fish. All aquatic animals are included: marine mammals, arthropods and mollusks, riverine amphibians, and even beavers.

The first four books are devoted to general considerations: how fish can be distinguished by their ways of life, parts, actions, “manners and complections”; they constitute, in effect, a treatise on comparative anatomy and physiology. No definite system of classification is adopted, however. Rondelet begins with what he calls “instrumental parts”: the head, then such internal organs as the gills, heart, liver, and kidneys, organs of locomotion and reproduction, and processes such as Garbels.

Next, he deals with “mixture of elements,” as revealed by taste, smell, color, and “idiosyncrasies,” such as that of the torpedo’s power of stunning all it touches. In book IV Rondelet's observations on differing systems of digestion, reproduction, and respiration are related to differences in physiological “activities.”

Aristotelian ideas on the correlation of parts are exploited, as well as teleological attitudes that led him to try to relate form to function and environment. Thus, he notes that scaly fish, without lungs, have only three chambers in their hearts, in contrast with marine mammals, which have four, and tries to explain the association. But Rondelet goes beyond Aristotle - for instance when he argues that fish need air for their “animal spirits,” taking in water and air (dissolved in water) and expelling the water through their gills - and points to experimental evidence: if fish are kept in a vessel full of water whose lid is closed, they will suffocate. If a small amount of air remains between surface and lid, they appear to struggle to get close to the surface.

He attacks those who will not accept the superior authority of experience and tries to base himself on anatomical investigations.

For those fish he could inspect on the coast of Languedoc, Rondelet is thorough and usually accurate; the work long remained the basic guide to the region. For the rest, not surprisingly, it is less valuable. Although the concept of correlation enabled him to dispose of a “marine lion,” Rondelet is often credulous about sea monsters. Marine mammals are quite well treated; he had dissected the respiratory organs of some smaller Cetacea and gives apparently the first zoological accounts of the sperm whale and the manatee.

Achievements

• Although he was active in several branches of biology, Rondelet’s reputation effectively depends on his massive compendium on aquatic life, which covered far more species than any earlier work in that field. Despite its theoretical limitation, it laid the foundations for later ichthyological research and was the standard reference work for over a century.
  
  He was the best during his time describing unusual structures or reporting examinations of stomach contents - for instance of a large starfish found on the beach at Maguelonne. The rest of the work is an encyclopedia of over 300 aquatic animals, almost all of which are illustrated. Each section opens with the subject’s names in several languages, including local variants, and then outlines its way of life, feeding habits, and characteristic anatomical features, both external and internal (gastronomic notes are sometimes added).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Libri de piscibus marinis: in quibus verae piscium effigies expressae sunt 1554
  • De ponderibus siue de iusta quantitate & proportione medicamentorum liber 1561
  • Conradi Gesneri medici Tigurini Historiae animalium liber IV 1604
  • Ars de dosibus medicinarum, et alia praestantissimorum medicorum monumenta. Quæ omnia in sequenti pagina indicantur 1564
  • Vniuersae aquatilium Historiae: Pars altera, cum veris ipsorum Imaginibus 1555
  • De ponderibus siue de iusta quantitate & proportione medicamentorum liber 1561
  • Dispensatorium, sive pharmacorum conficiendorum ratio 1608
  • Noua stirpium aduersaria perfacilis vestigatio, luculentaque accessio ad priscorum, praesertim Dioscoridis 1576

Religion

In later years Rondelet seems to have been attracted by ideas of religious reform, and by 1563 he was reckoned a member of the Protestant community.

Views

It was unusual for Rondelet to describe animals he knew very little about. As a professor of comparative anatomy at the University of Montpellier, he was convinced that the body parts of animals had been created as perfectly adapted for their specific environment. Consequently, he felt they should be studied in this environment, and he often joined fisherman’s crews to do just that. Following such trips, he took specimens home, kept them in tanks, studied them and experimented on them. Usually, this did not end well for the fish. For example, Rondelet successfully proved, by sealing a tank, that even fish need a supply of fresh air to survive.

Although the fish that helped him prove this gave its life for science, in the end it didn’t matter much, as Rondelet had a habit of eventually dissecting the fish he studied. In short, he considered personal observation part of the foundation of his study of nature, and included in his book only a handful of species he had never seen. An exception was made however, for these species, which he could not successfully identify and of which no depiction could be obtained. Rondelet provides no further information that that these are species from “the Indies”, by which he means the America’s, without further narrowing down the region, and does not indicate who his source of information was. It is likely he was intrigued by the spectacular descriptions.

Personality

Rondelet’s character, as portrayed by Joubert, was hardly Calvinistic: he sounds more Rabelaisian - a great lover of good food, especially sweets and cakes, grapes, and cherries. A keen musician, he constructed a fiddle for himself while a student. When he grew too stout for dancing, he loved ta watch dances and to give balls. Like so many of his days, he had an enthusiastic interest in agriculture and building and spent much on alteration of his houses. Above all, he was generous and fond of good company, very merry and a lover of jokes and fun.

Quotes from others about the person

• Rondelet expresses a vague concept of homology: “all parts correspond in proportion to those which have the same use, the same situation, notwithstanding they may be diverse in substance and form.”

Connections

After Rondelet graduated in 1537 with the Doctor of Medicine degree, he married Jeanne Sandre in 1538. After his first wife died in 1560, Rondelet married Tryphene de La Croix.

late wife:

Jeanne Sandre

Wife:

Tryphene de La Croix

collaborator:

Laurent Joubert

He was a pupil of Rondelet and also did a French translation, L'liistoire entiere des poissons that appeared in 1558.

Friend:

François Rabelais

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume11
  1975