Monthly Archives: June 2011
Human taxonomy
While modern taxonomists no longer use Linnaeus’s precise system of classification, they have retained important elements of his bionomial nomenclature. A current taxonomical classification of human beings might look as follows: Kingdom . . . . Animalia Phylum . … Continue reading
Human “monsters” and reproductive mysteries
We often forget how recently humans have understood the basics of their own biological origins. Well into the nineteenth century, confusion abounded about the connection between human reproductiuon and other forms of animal reproduction, as well as the roles played … Continue reading
Jardine’s The Natural History of Monkeys (1833)
Sir William Jardine devoted an entire volume to the animals he described as approaching “nearest to man in structure, and consequently in actions” (29). He noted the impact of the mere sight of these creatures on a wide range of … Continue reading
Monkeys, Men, and Man-Apes
Depictions of monkey’s and apes in natural histories by Buffon , Jardine, Goldsmith (and others) led to confusion and anxiety on the part of natural historians and the general public. Long before Darwin and Mendel, similarities between simians and humans … Continue reading
Humans as a Species of Animal
The complex issue of human races, and the relationship of the human race to the rest of the animal kingdom, was one of the most hotly contested topics in the history of natural history. Monogenesis claimed that all human beings … Continue reading
The Venus Fly-trap and the Great Chain of Being
The Venus fly-trap caused serious problems for the traditional theory of the Great Chain of Being. The idea of the Great Chain suggested that all of creation was arranged in a rigidly hierarchical system, with God at the top and … Continue reading
Mimosa
Percy Shelley’s poem “The Sensitive Plant” is based on a natural history specimen, a member of the mimosa family. In Shelley’s poem the plant is personified in a powerfully anthropomorphic way: A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the … Continue reading
Polypus (hydra) and the boundary between plant and animal
The polypus, or hydra, generated much comment among natural historians because of its apparent existence on the boundary between plant and animal species, because of its unique reproductive behavior, and because of the forms of “sensation” it seemed to manifest. … Continue reading
The Frog-Fish from Surinam (1776)
This page indicates the way Londoners (and American colonists) acquired knowledge of natural history in 1776. The article in The Universal Magazine headlines “Description of the Frog-Fish of Surinam. Illustrated with an accurate Engraving of that extraordinary Animal.” The text reveals confused … Continue reading
Luigi Galvani and “Electric” Romanticism
Describing the genesis of her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley wrote: “perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things.” Luigi Galvani (1737-98) was a physician and anatomy professor at the University of Bologna. After noticing that … Continue reading