BONNET Charles Considérations sur les corps organisés, Où l’on traite de leur origine, de leur développement, de leur reproduction, & où l’on a rassemblé en abrégé tout ce que l’Histoire Naturelle offre de plus certain & de plus intéressant sur ce sujet.

Garrison-Morton, 472 ; NLM, p.58; DSB, II, 286-287; Needham, History of Embryology, pp. 213-214..

First edition.

Charles Bonnet (1720-1793) is considered one of the fathers of modern biology. Bonnet first studied at the Geneva academy, where he was taught by the mathematicians Gabriel Cramer and Jean-Louis Calandrini. It was thanks to Cramer that he discovered the works of Newton, Leibniz and Malebranche. At the same time, he was also interested in entomology and plant physiology. He kept up a correspondence with Réaumur and was much appreciated by Cuvier. In 1740 he was made a correspondent of the Académie des Sciences in Paris following his experimental demonstration of aphid parthenogenesis, which Réaumur had tried in vain. Following his appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1743, he became affiliated to most of the academies and learned societies of Europe, in particular those of Berlin, Stockholm, St Petersburg and Bologna.

Using many of Albrecht von Haller’s theories to support his own opinions, Bonnet set forth the functional and structural notion of the cell, which was not stated formally until a hundred years later.

“Bonnet’s theory of generation offered the best synthesis of 18th century ideas of development and remained a leading authority until von Baer” (Garrison-Morton).