|
J-B
Dumas and J-B Boussingault, The Chemical and Physiological
Balance of Organic Nature, 1842 (trans. 1844)
In this collaborative essay the French organic chemists, Jean
Baptiste Dumas (1800-1884) and Jean Baptiste Boussingault (1802-1887)
described nature as a chemical laboratory with “the animal
kingdom constituting an immense apparatus of combustion and
the vegetable kingdom and immense apparatus of reduction.”
The “mysterious cycle of organic life on the globe”
worked by vegetables drawing matter from the atmosphere to create
organic substances, these pass into animals when they are eaten,
the plants and animals return these materials to nature’s
grand reserve upon their death and ultimate decay.” (pp.
18-23)
|
|
|
|
|
Erasmus
Darwin, Zoonomia, 1793 |
Charles
Darwin, On the Formation of Vegetable Matter by Worms, 1881 |
Alexander
von Humboldt, Cosmos, 1858 |
Dumas
and Boussingault, Balance of Organic Matter, 1844 |
Ferdinand
Cohn, Bacteria, The Smallest Living Beings, 1872 |
Louis
Pasteur, Etudes sur la Biere, 1862 |
Selman
Waksman, Sergei Winogradsky, 1953 |
Selman
Waksman, Humus, 1939 |
Vladimir
Vernadsky, Principles of Biogeochemistry, 1960 |
James
Lovelock, An Homage to Gaia, 1985 |
|
Lloyd
Ackert
Whitney Humanities Center
Yale University
53 Wall Street
P.O. Box 208298
New Haven, CT 06520-8298
Office: (203).432.3112
lloydackert@sbcglobal.net |
The
Sterling Memorial Exhibit is located in the Overflow Case
to the left of the circulation desk. The Sterling Memorial
Library is located at
120 High Street
Yale University
New Haven, CT 06520
Map, Directions
|