Poissons

1863 · VF30184 — 1863-1864 95, 87, 64, 37 p., 2 (1 double-paged), 1 lithographed pls, new cloth (marbled end papers). A complete collection of all his important teratological work. This copy is signed L. Lereboullet and was the personal copy of Lereboullet’s son Leon Lereboullet (1842-1914), who was a physician. Rare. Dominique-Auguste Lereboullet (1804-1865) had begun to make teratological experiments in 1852. He subjected nearly 300,000 pike eggs to such disturbing agents as heat, cold, running water, and brushing, and carefully tabulated his results, noting that neither the fact nor the agent of perturbation had an effect on the number or type of abnormality that occurred. He concluded that abnormalities were most probably inherent in the structure of the germ, rather than caused by outside agents.Lereboullet divided monsters into two groups (single and double) and seven classes, which he attributed to modifications in the blastodermic thickening and the embryonic bond. He recognized that the thickened edge of the blastoderm—the embryonic ring—gives rise to all embryonic structures and suggested that double monsters develop from two separate points in the blastodermic thickening. For these experiments the Academy awarded Lereboullet the Alhumbert Prize, which he shared with Camille Dareste, although they had arrived at opposite theoretical conclusions.