Geoffroy Saint - Hilaire - Pioneer biologist

Hoang An

Hearing of fish, how to bend wings of ducks, geese and twins: these are interesting research topics of anatomist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in the early 19th century. Behind the excuse of Eclecticism is a specific purpose: demonstrate the unity in the bodies of animals. It was not until 200 years later, when the molecular biology industry was born that people proved that he was absolutely right.

Biological homology

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire is truly a nature lover. With the work of a surgeon, he immersed himself in studying the mechanism of action in animals' bodies.For example, how can the porcupine fish expand itself? Not only that, he also tried to understand the broader issues and especially built a theory of the relationship between " unspecified flows " in the universe (light, electricity, divine flow). economic.vv .).

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire came to Egypt and there he found the first ideas to write on the Philosophy of Philosophy: a great ambition to prove " there is a basic unit in the structure of all species." wrestling ".

He started with very simple things: try to prove that the mammalian body structure is similar, and then other animals such as fish, reptiles and amphibians. . In other words, he tried to understand and identify what biologists today know well: count on biological sources. For example, he thinks that the fish (bone) layers are the shells to protect the ears similar to the cartilage rings that are the main components of the middle ear in mammals (hammer, deers and stapes). in the ear).

After that, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire also found consistency in the structure of very different organisms, an example between insects and fish to expand their hypothesis.

Duck story and cuttlefish

Still feeling unsatisfied, he continued to pursue his path and insisted that lobster anatomical analysis showed that when he turned his back on shrimp, they resemble . vertebrate animals. It is important to remember that the lobster has the main nerve lines on the abdomen and the main blood vessels in the back but in vertebrates, these arrangements are the opposite. However, he found it much more bizarre in soft-bodied pawns: if he took a duck and turned it upside down so that his head touched the tail, their anatomy seemed very similar to . cuttlefish species. .

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's findings attracted the attention of Cuvier, one of the most famous surgeons at the time and his main rival at the Paris Museum of Natural History. Cuvier told the Academy of Sciences in 1830 that Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was mistaken: a duck could not resemble a squid and the resemblance between fish and the inner ear of mammals also indicated is guesswork that is not a serious study. However, now for any biologist, this identity is a normal thing. Not only that, people see them everywhere: we see the similarity between DNA sequences as well as the similarity between members of the 4-legged vertebrate animal. Identity is a natural result of evolution.

The story of the duck and the lobster is quickly forgotten. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's name no longer appeared in the history book of comparative surgery.

But history has finally returned to him. The name of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire is more and more recently mentioned. Not only that, he is also regarded as one of the researchers laying the foundations for a new discipline named: biology of development (biologie de l'évolution du développement). The goal of the research industry is to explore the unique identity of different species. This work is now proven by molecular genetics. Interestingly, the new Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire works until 2004 were published in English.

Back in the past, as an irony of history, after being "beaten" by "Cuvier", Geoffroy continued to plunge into another research project. This time the goal is no less illusory. And it was not until 500 years later that the accuracy of this work was recognized.

In the summer of 1829, two conjoined twins named Ritta and Christina Parodi came to Paris. The parents of the two children are the islanders of the Austro-island (Italian and Mediterranean). They brought two children out to the street in hopes of earning money. From the shoulders up, the two children separate and stick together at the abdomen. Although they have four arms, they share only one genital organ, one rectum, one pelvis and two legs. The press at that time inflated the ' Ritta-Christina ' event and considered them a person with two heads. In fact, that's not the case, it's just the two kids who share the same lower body.

Ritta twins - Christina is a world-leading social science-science event (Photo: Imageshack)

These two sticky twins attract special attention from Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. The distortion of these conjoined twins for him is just a secondary form of a basic unit and a variety of biological life. In his book Philosophy of Anatomy, he considered deformed children as a game of creation. In fact, these phenomena still obey the laws of nature that are inherent in the structure of the body. In other words, although the appearance is deformed, this body still respects the law of nature.

On November 23, 1829, Ritta Parodi died of lung disease. Christina also left her life 3 minutes after her sister died. Although the twins' parents did not want to, the two children were still transferred to the museum for surgery. The autopsy operation performed in the museum's main room is considered a major social and scientific event of that year. Cuvier also attended the examination.

The detailed record of the most thorough surgery was at that time up to 400 pages and was a great scientific work. The minutes were written by Serres, a student of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire but all details were his, in which he wanted to give explanations about the development of the human body.

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire has come up with the hypothesis that only molecular biology is capable of proving completely right: the great diversity in nature is actually hidden under a fundamental unity. . There is no proof that this is better than the result of animal gene decoding programs.

In 2001, when the human gene map was decoded, it was known that we humans had about 30,000 genes. This is actually a modest result because it shows that humans only have the number of genes equal to 50% of Caenorhabditis elegans, an earthworm of only 1 millimeter in length. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire truly becomes a hero when molecular biology emerges and develops. His surgical philosophy failed simply because he lacked the scientific means we currently have.