After obtaining bachelor's degrees in arts and in sciences, Lacaze-Duthiers went to Paris, despite paternal opposition, to undertake simultaneously medical and natural history studies. He became licentiate in 1845, doctor of medicine in 1851, and doctor of sciences at the Faculty of Sciences of Paris in 1853.
Career
Gallery of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers
Photo of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers.
Gallery of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers
Photo of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers.
Gallery of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers
Portrait of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers.
Gallery of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers
Photo of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers.
Gallery of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers
Photo of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers.
Gallery of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers
Portrait of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers.
Gallery of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers
Portrait of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers.
Achievements
Bronze bust of Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers.
Membership
French Academy of Sciences
1871 - 1901
French Academy of Sciences, Paris, France
In 1871 Lacaze-Duthiers was elected to the Academy of Sciences.
After obtaining bachelor's degrees in arts and in sciences, Lacaze-Duthiers went to Paris, despite paternal opposition, to undertake simultaneously medical and natural history studies. He became licentiate in 1845, doctor of medicine in 1851, and doctor of sciences at the Faculty of Sciences of Paris in 1853.
Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers was a French anatomist, biologist and zoologist who specialized in malacology and became one of the pioneers in this field. He studied the anatomy and developmental history of mussels, coral, snails, brachiopods and other lower marine animals.
Background
Ethnicity:
Lacaze-Duthiers was descended from an old Gascon family.
Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers was born on May 15, 1821, in Château de Stiguederne, Montpezat, Lot-et-Garonne, France. He was the second son of Baron J. de Lacaze-Duthiers, a rather difficult and authoritarian man.
Education
After obtaining bachelor degrees in arts and in sciences, Lacaze-Duthiers went to Paris, despite paternal opposition, to undertake simultaneously medical and natural history studies. He became licentiate in 1845, as a doctor of medicine in 1851, and a doctor of sciences at the Faculty of Sciences of Paris in 1853.
In 1853 Lacaze-Duthiers departed on research excursions to the Balearic Islands and Brittany, where he commenced work on his scientific specialty, marine mollusks, and zoophytes. In 1854, upon his return to Paris, his mentor Henri Milne-Edwards, for whom he had formerly acted as préparateur, obtained for him a professorship of zoology at the newly created Faculty of Sciences at Lille, where Louis Pasteur was dean of the faculty.
During this period of his career Lacaze-Duthiers made several more scientific excursions to the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. During his most important excursion, undertaken for the French government from 1860 to 1862, he studied coral fishing in Algeria. The results of this expedition, published as Histoire naturelle du corail (1864), won him the Prix Bordin from the Academy of Sciences in 1863. His work was especially valued for its accurate description of the generative organs and the phases of development of the coral and its polypary. In 1864 Lacaze-Duthiers left Lille for Paris, where he became a professor of annelids, mollusks, and zoophytes at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in 1865. He gave up this chair in 1869 to take one of the two chairs of zoology, anatomy, and comparative physiology at the Faculty of Sciences, the other chair being held by Milne-Edwards.
The earlier part of Lacaze-Duthiers's career was devoted to writing numerous long monographs on mollusks and zoophytes, in which he described with great accuracy and minuteness of detail the anatomy, histology, and embryogeny of his subjects, utilizing the results to classify what had appeared to be anomalous types of animals. The latter part of his career was characterized by activities directed toward assuring the progress of zoology and zoological education in France. Thus, at the Faculty of Sciences, he instituted laboratory work for students and set up a regularized three-year course in zoology for degree candidates. His journal, Archives de zoologie expérimentale et générale, founded in 1872, published the work of his students. The opening discourse, “Direction des études zoologiques,” argues against the assertions of Claude Bernard and the French physiological school by insisting that zoology can and ought to be an experimental science if one extends “experiment” to mean a prepared observation controlling an induction.
Also to further zoological education, Lacaze-Duthiers founded and expended a great deal of effort developing two of the earliest marine zoological laboratories, one at Roscoff, on the coast of Brittany, and the other the Laboratory Arago, at Banyuls, on the Mediterranean. In his work on marine invertebrates, Lacaze-Duthiers followed in the footsteps of his master, Henri Milne-Edwards, who also had carefully studied the anatomy and embryogeny of these animals. A later memoir applying the principle of connections (1872) demonstrated that the auditory nerve of mollusks is always attached to the cerebroid ganglion and not sometimes to the pedal ganglion, as had been previously assumed.
Repeatedly Lacaze-Duthiers stressed the importance for classification of studying marine animals in their natural habitat and of observing their embryogeny. He was a follower of the Cuvier school in that he held to a very empirical sort of science. Although he claimed to be “philosophical,” he was extremely cautious about generalization and hypotheses. He believed, for example, that the problem of the origin of species was outside the domain of objective science. Lacaze-Duthiers did, however, often apply Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s principle of connections in limited areas. His doctoral dissertation, for example, set up detailed homologies of the parts of the genital casing throughout the insects.
Membership
In 1871 Lacaze-Duthiers was elected to the Academy of Sciences.
French Academy of Sciences
,
France
1871 - 1901
Personality
While very demanding of his students and reluctant to extend his confidences, Lacaze-Duthiers nevertheless felt a great need for the approval of others. Especially in his old age, he became rather rigid and suspicious.