Recomendaciones

On top of the consideration that Joblot copied L eeuw enhoek or H u y g e n s ’ e x p e r i m e n t s , h i s t o r i a n s did not acknowledge any reception of Jo b lo t’s book and ideas during the eighteenth- century, and most ignore him. No evidence has been brought forward that the m ajor microscopists of his time and o f the

follow ing period —Trembley, Needham, Spallanzani, Hill, M üller— read or even had knowledge of the book. On the contrary I will defend here four ideas: 1. Jo b lo t’s book received three distinct receptions during the century,^5 which put his book among the m ost influential m icroscopical works of the E nlightenm ent; 2. The first apparent absence of its reception is due to a good matching of his ideas with those defended in the Paris Aca dé mi e des sciences,

and such reception well illustrates the routine status of the

m icroscope adopted by eighteenth-century scholars; 3. C ontrary to previous experim ents on spontaneous generation, J o b lo t’s

experim ents are the first to be presented within a rationalised experimental system. In such a way, Joblot did not i m i t a t e

L eeu w en h o ek nor Huygens, but im proved experim ental protocols invented by Huygens and others; 4. Nevertheless, the absence of a fram ew ork that could give meaning to Jo b lo t’s works forced the abandoning of such a topic and turned the attention of

“m icroscopists” towards more suitable objects, such as insects or s e e d s .

Fournier 1981, 206, D obell 1932, 372. H ow ever, later F o u rn ier (1991, 182-185) ch anged h er m ind about Jo b lo t im itatin g L eeu w en h o ek .

^ ^ I exam ine in this chapter the first reception o f Joblot, the second and third will be discussed in chapters 3 and 6.

The year after the publication of De sc rip tio n des n o u v ea u x m i c r o s c o p e s , Jo b lo t’s book was showered with praise by t h e Je su it’s news Journal de Trévoux, the main bulwark of resistance that opposed, in particular, the A ca d é m ie des sciences.^^ Joblot had already published at least two articles in this journal on new m irrors he had i n v e n t e d .^7 The 28 page review of his book was

laudatory towards the author as much as towards the subject. The author reported the discovery of the “yet unknow n anim als” , highlighted the marvels of nature, quoting the “9000 species know n by Tournefort” , each of which would give different animalcules when put in infusion. The utility of the m icroscope was displayed by the author in every manner: “Botanists will find out about the structure of the tissue, internal and external of plants” . He then listed above all the various professional uses of the m icroscopes proposed by Joblot, for painters, florists, writing experts, m ineralogists, instrum ent m akers, chem ists, jew elle rs, apo th ecaries, oculists, glass-m akers, p h y sician s, anatom ists, surgeons, w atchm akers, antiquarians and e n g r a v e r s . A whole utilitarian society was thus revealed through the m icroscope. B ut the most striking aspect was that the Jesuits follow ed point by po in t Jo b lo t’s antispontaneist experim ents and theoretical consequences. The anonymous writer pointed out several

observations taken from the book against spontaneous generation, and reported as well the hypothesis almost word for word.^^ It is not to be excluded that the author of the review could have been Joblot himself, but there is no enough evidence in to support this.

5 6 R oger 1993, 181.

5 7 Joblot 1702; Joblot 1703.

5 8 An. 1719, 1406-1411. The list is inspired from that by Joblot 1718 I, in A v e r t i s s e m e n t .

However, in accepting Jo b lo t’s inquiry, the Jesuits received a thesis that had been challenged and rejected by two famous fathers of their order, Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) and Filippo Bonanni (1638-1725), the latter being a contemporary of Joblot. It does not appear that Jo b lo t’s book was review ed e l s e w h e r e .It is possible to explain this first weak reception by several factors, aside from the too easy appeal to the decline of microscopy. First Joblot was not a fellow of the Acadé mie des sciences which seems a suitable milieu for the acknowledgment of his work. Elected professor o f m athem atics (geom etry and perspective) in 1699, he was academician of the French Royal Academ y of Sculpture and Painting in which he gave several microscopical talks. His

colleagues were Coypel (1628-1707), Félibien (1619-1695), and other painters, engravers, and architects. If stim ulated on aesthetic subjects, which sometimes appear in his book, such an intellectual environm ent obviously did not provide the suitable context to receive Jo b lo t’s observations, even if the A cadem y proposed

among its lectures naturalistic subjects, and also trained m iniature p a i n t e r s . J o b l o t equally demonstrated an interest in the

m icroscope turned into a drawing m a c h i n e . 6 2 He actually does not

seem to have used other official networks aside from own academy and the Jesuits. The latter rivalry with the Ac a d é m i e des sciences

could possibly have made him enemies there. Indeed Joblot is quoted only once by Fontenelle in Histoire de V académie, in the

1731 Eloge de Etienne-François G e o f fr o y , regarding the artificial

6 6 I did not found evidence of other review s, in Jo u rn a l des savants and in the F rench jo u rn a ls published in A m sterdam at th at tim e.

61 If m in iatu re pain tin g was an obstacle to the m icro sco p ical

ic o n o g ra p h y (R u esto w 1996, 6 8 -7 7 ), h o w ev er, e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry n a tu ra lis ts w ere best b eing e n g rav ers, like L yonnet, or even m in iatu re p a in te r like R osel von R osenhoef.

m agnets Joblot succeeded in making in 1701, and not his m ic ro s c o p ic a l r e s e a r c h . ^ 3

Nevertheless Joblot also kept in touch with his circle of acquaintances, mostly the scholars of the old A c a d é m i e (1666-

1699) with whom he carried out several of his m icroscopical

observations. A cadem icians of his own generation —in 1718 Joblot was 73 years o ld — like Guillaume Am ontons (1663-1705),

Guillaum e H om berg (1652-1715) and Jean M éry (1645-1721) are quoted as friends or collaborators. He also belonged to scientific circles, perhaps to the what was left o f the Académ ie Bourdelot during the 1680s, and to the circle gathered around the Paris apothecary and French m inister Mathieu François Geoffroy during the 1670s and 1 6 8 0 s . T h e r e he met anatomists and physicians such as Josep h -G u ich ard Duverney (1648-1730), H om berg and astronom ers like Gian D om enico Cassini (1625-1712) a n d

S é b a s t i e n , gai ni ng the attention of the company by showing his magnets. Perhaps Jo b lo t’s interest in m icroscopes was also

awakened by such discussions in circles. M icroscopes were indeed a shared interest in this society, for Geoffroy and H om berg wrote respectively at the turn of the century a thesis on spermatic

anim alcules and papers on spiders observed thanks to the

m i c r o s c o p e . 6 6 D uverney corresponded with Malpighi, Pitcairne,

Bidloo, Boerhaave, Ruysch, therefore with the most famous anatom ists, m icroanatom ists and physicians o f the period 1660- 1730. Having entered into the Aca dé mi e des sciences in 1676,

63 F o n ten elle [1731]1764, 93.

6 4 F ontenelle [1731] 1764, 93. On the A cadém ie B ourdelot, the rival

academ y to the em ergent A cadém ie Royale des Sciences see G abbey 1984. 65 F o n ten elle [1731J1764, 93.

D u v ern ey cham pioned co llectio n and anatom ising, was greatly in terested in i n s e c t s , a n d even conserved S w am m erd am ’s

m anuscript o f Biblia naturae, which he w anted to publish, before he sold it to B oerhaave in 1727. H om berg, an MD educated by G uericke, B oyle and Graaf, was accustom ed to building

m icroscopes and other instrum ents, thus risin g in the esteem o f the a c a d e m y . w h e n in Rome, around 1685 he invented a tripod su p p o rt for the m icroscope, that allow ed fo cu ssin g adjustem ent, quickly used by the instrum ent m aker C a m p a n i . 6 9 A ccording to the

C artesian physicist R égis, H om berg had also w ritten, prior to 1690, an u n p u b lish ed treatise on sperm atic a n i m a l c u l e s .7 0

T hrough this range o f scholars, and through other scholars in terested in the m icroscope such as Father N icholas M alebranche, L ouis C arré (1663-1711), Philippe de la H ire (1640-1718) and N icolas de M alézieu (1650-1727), the R oyal A cadem y could follow Jo b lo t’s works. La H ire for instance inserted, in his 1694 Traité des e p i c y c l o ï d e s , a leaflet from the instrum ent m aker M ichael

B u tterfield regarding the use of the m icroscope, w hile C arré and M alézieu rep o rted m icro sco p ical experim ents and o b serv atio n s to the academ y in 1707 and 1718. C ertainly no w ork by Joblot could be published in the M émo ires de VAcadé mie des sciences, for, according to the academ ic rules, only reg u lar m em bers were

allow ed to publish their texts in the M é m o i r e s B ut non-m em bers o f the inner circle could see their w ork reported by an

6 7 H ahn 1971, 87. L etter from B oerhaave to Sherard o f the 1st A ugust 1727 (L indeboom 1962, 153-154).

6 8 R oger 1993, 310; Salom on-B ayet 1978, 130. The source is F ontenelle 1741, 89.

69 B edini 1963, 399-400, 421. 7 0 R oger 1993, 87.

academ ician, and hopefully abstracted by F o n ten elle in the annual report Histoire de VAcadémie.

The scientific culture of the early eig h teenth-century Paris

Ac ad é m ie des sciences was characterised by some axes such as the u tility o f the research program m e, that gave priority to

technological and econom ical questions, as well as to the unveiling o f p ro fessio n al s e c r e t s . C h r i s t i a n L icoppe has highlighted the rupture in the practices o f rep ro d u cib ility fo r physical and

technical evidence in the new A c a d e m y . O n the other hand, “Life scien ces” , hum an, anim al anatom y and physiology w ere also the focus o f the academ y, w ith anatom ists such as M éry, D uverney, H om berg, L ittré and D ionis, a trend analysed by R oger and

S a l o m o n - B a y e t . ' ^4 B ut another research program m e has yet been ignored by historians. The germ theory to w hich Jo b lo t’s

experim ental system related, was, at least for the A c a d é m i e Royale des Sciences, the accepted flexible system , defended as such by m any scholars since the rebirth o f the academ y in 1700. D uring the first forty years of the century the im portance o f the germ theory was well settled for anim al and vegetable kingdom s, supported by the m ain anatom ists, botanists, and m ost o f all, by the secretary F o n ten elle (1657-1757).'75 A lthough flexible, it was conceived as a program m e, and was furtherm ore estab lish ed with the victory o f the anatom ist A lexis L ittré (1658-1725) over Jean M éry on the existence of the egg in hum ans in 1702. C oncerning anim als and hum ans, the period 1700-1745 saw the establishm ent

L icoppe 1996, 116-24, B riggs 1991. On the procedure o f the patent in France see H ahn 1971, 66-67.

^ 5 L icoppe 1996, 88-89ff.

R oger 1993, 250; Salom on-B ayet 1978, 123ff.

^ ^ The germ theory was favourably com m ented by F o n ten elle (1704, 52; 1708a, 9; 1708b, 49-50, 1714b, 41-42).

o f the doctrine o f the germ against anim alculism .^^ So general was the claim that the botanist Joseph P itton de T o u rn efo rt (1656-

1708) did not hesitate in identifying germ s in the m ineral kingdom as the regular m ethod of reproduction! How indeed to account for the “corne d ’am m on” , a fossil shaped as a volute?^^ He stated, in

1702, that the

germ o f the stones and o f the m etals is a sort o f pow der that com es perhaps out o f stones and m etals during the tim e they still are alive, w hich is to say that they grow (..)• One can com pare the dust we call the germ s o f the stones to the seeds o f several plants; the seeds o f the ferns, o f the

m aidenhair fern, o f the m osses, o f the truffles and sim ilar p lants can only be d isco v ered w ith the m icroscope.^ ^

The early years o f the century saw the botanist C harles Plum ier (1646-1706) publishing the description of the seeds o f the A m erican fern, w hile A ntonio V allisneri (1661-1730) in Padua discovered the seeds o f the Lenticula p a l u s t r i s J ^ N evertheless, the prestige of the fam ous botanist —T ournefort was directo r o f the K in g ’s Jardin des pl a nt es — was probably sufficiently im portant to suppress criticism s tow ards the “vegetating sto n es” . B ut after T o u rn efo rt’s death in 1708, research on the seeds o f the stones was quickly contested. In Eloge de Tournefort, F o n ten elle excused the man who “transform ed everything into w hat he liked the m o s t” , 80 hence taking m inerals for plants. A lready in 1709, Reaum ur, then a young man of 26, took the exam ple o f the

form ation o f shells, aquatic and terrestrial, to in d irectly co n firm that no germ s w ere present. Instead through both sim ple vision and a m icroscope, he detected an infinite num ber o f sm all ducts in

7 6 R oger 1993, 364-384. 7 7 T ou rn efo rt 1704, 223. 7 8 T ou rn efo rt 1704, 233.

7 9 Plum ier 1705, 2-3, 123, 143, see plates 2, 18, 19, 25, 142. V allisneri 1704, 2 5 0 -2 5 1 .

the sh ell,81 show ing its grow th to be m ade by “intussusception” , by adding sm all particles to each hole o f the “rid d le” . Physicians and b otanists such as C laude-Joseph G eoffroy (1685-1752), the

brother o f the chem ist who had built the chem ical tables o f

affinity, and Sébastien V aillant (1669-1722) fed the criticism s, and R eaum ur questioned T o u rn efo rt’s idea even m ore seriously when carrying out experim ents on the form ation o f the stones in 1721.8 2 Later, in his works arguing for a distinction betw een two kinds of form ation, cry stallisatio n for stones and “organic m ech an ism ” for plants and anim als, Louis B ourguet noticed that the germ s o f

T o u rn efo rt had soon v a n i s h e d . 83 B ut the other part o f the research

program m e on the seeds o f cryptogam prom oted by T ournefort already in 169284 —follow ing the im pulse o f the Italian scholars— m et w ith m any echoes in the Academ y and fitted well into the general schem e of ovism , debated by nearly everyone in Europe at the same tim e. In the Academ y, Fontenelle had strengthened the research o f the germ s through its link to the m icroscope: “perhaps we ask where are the seeds of the stones, but w ould we have ever discovered these of the m ushroom s and of the fern w ithout the

m i c r o s c o p e ? ” . 85 T ournefort him self was enough o f a m icroscopist

to show in 1705, after Hooke, that “the m icroscope show s that the m old is but a flow er b e d ” . 8 6

8 1 R eaum ur 1711, 370. 8 2 R eaum ur 1723, 258. 8 3 B ourguet 1729, 78-80.

8 4 In a paper read before the A cadem y at the end o f M ay 1692, co n cern in g an “ex tra o rd in a ry m ush ro o m ” , T o u rn e fo rt ( 1730, 121-124)