Antoine Étienne Renaud Augustin Serres (12 September 1786, Clairac – 22 January 1868,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

) was a French physician and

embryologist Embryology (from Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, ''-logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the prenatal development of gametes (sex cells), fertilization, and development of embryos and ...

. He has been considered a pioneer of neurology. He was among the first to formulate the

recapitulation theory The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism—often expressed using Ernst Haeckel's phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"—is a historical hypothesis that the development of the embryo of an ...

Life and work

Étienne Serres was the son of physician Jean Jacques Serres, "maître chirurgien" at Clairac and Marie Roussel. He followed a brother who died young in Paris to study medicine in 1803 and received his medical doctorate in 1808, second of eight students who completed their residentship. He defended a thesis titled Essai sur la certitude et l’incertitude en medecine (essay on certainty and uncertainty in medicine) in 1810 which was based on the ideas of Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis (1757–1808). During the Battle of Paris he was shot while treating patients. The bullet was not removed and he suffered from osteitis. He afterwards worked at the

Hôtel-Dieu de Paris In French-speaking countries, a hôtel-Dieu () was originally a hospital for the poor and needy, run by the Catholic Church. Nowadays these buildings or institutions have either kept their function as a hospital, the one in Paris being the oldest an ...

and the Hôpital de la Pitié where he became a chief physician in 1822. He was made chair of anatomy, successor to Pierre Flourens (1794–1864), in 1839 at the

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...

. In 1841, he was chosen president of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

. In 1865 he also became a professort of anthropology at the

. Serres' scientific work was influenced by the theories of

Lorenz Oken Lorenz Oken (1 August 1779 – 11 August 1851) was a Germans, German natural history, naturalist, botany, botanist, biologist, and ornithology, ornithologist. Biography Oken was born Lorenz Okenfuss () in Bohlsbach (now part of Offenburg), Ortena ...

(1779–1851),

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier (23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier (; ), was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuv ...

(1769–1832), and especially

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (; 15 April 177219 June 1844) was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theorie ...

(1772–1844). He suffered from a pulmonary infection and died despite being treated by Auguste Nonat (1804–1887) and Pierre-Joseph Manec (1799–1884). In 1817 he published an essay on human dentition (Essai sur l’anatomie et la physiologie des dents, nouvelle theorie de la dentition. In 1822 he examined intracerebellar haemorrhages. He became interested in neurological disorders and conducted vivisection experiments in pigeons, dogs, cows, and horses to induce paralysis and apoplexy. In 1857 he collaborated with Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne (1806–1875) to examine the role of facial muscles through electrostimulation. With German

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

Johann Friedrich Meckel Johann Friedrich Meckel (17 October 1781 – 31 October 1833), often referred to as Johann Friedrich Meckel, the Younger, was a German anatomist born in Halle. He worked as a professor of anatomy, pathology and zoology at the University of Halle, ...

(1781–1833), the supposed " Meckel-Serres Law" is obtained. This was a theory that attempted to provide a link between comparative embryology and a "pattern of unification" in the organic world. It was based on a belief that within the entire animal kingdom there was a single unified body-type, and that during development, the organs of higher animals matched the forms of comparable organs in lower animals. This theory applied to both

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

s and

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s, and also stated that higher animals go through embryological stages analogous to the adult stages of lower life-forms in the course of their development, a version of the

later ossified in the statement "

Ontogeny Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the ovum, egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to t ...

recapitulates

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or Taxon, taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, M ...

" of

Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; ; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, natural history, naturalist, eugenics, eugenicist, Philosophy, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biology, marine biologist and artist ...

. In the field of

teratology Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development in organisms during their life span. It is a sub-discipline in medical genetics which focuses on the classification of congenital abnormalities in dysmorphology caused by ...

, Serres explained the presence of malformations as cases of arrested development or over-development. He had disagreements with

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

regarding the latter's evolutionary theories. Serres believed that humans were creatures set apart and a supreme goal of all creation.

Associated eponyms

* Serres' angle: Also known as the metafacial angle, an angle between the base of the

skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...

and the

pterygoid process The pterygoid processes of the sphenoid (from Greek ''pteryx'', ''pterygos'', "wing"), one on either side, descend perpendicularly from the regions where the body and the greater wings of the sphenoid bone unite. Each process consists of a medi ...

. * Serres' glands:

Epithelial cell Epithelium or epithelial tissue is a thin, continuous, protective layer of Cell (biology), cells with little extracellular matrix. An example is the epidermis, the outermost layer of the skin. Epithelial (Mesothelium, mesothelial) tissues line ...

rests found in the subepithelial

connective tissue Connective tissue is one of the four primary types of animal tissue, a group of cells that are similar in structure, along with epithelial tissue, muscle tissue, and nervous tissue. It develops mostly from the mesenchyme, derived from the mesod ...

in the

palate The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sep ...

of the newborn.

Selected writings

* ''Essai sur l'anatomie et la physiologie des dents, ou Nouvelle théorie de la dentition'', 1817 - Essay on the anatomy and physiology of the teeth, or a new theory about

dentition Dentition pertains to the development of teeth and their arrangement in the mouth. In particular, it is the characteristic arrangement, kind, and number of teeth in a given species at a given age. That is, the number, type, and morpho-physiology ...

. * ''Anatomie comparée du cerveau, dans les quatre classes des animaux vertébrés, appliquée à la physiologie et à la pathologie du système nerveux'', 1824-1827 -

Comparative anatomy Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species). The science began in the classical era, continuing in t ...

of the brain, in the four classes of

s, as it applies to the physiology and pathology of the

nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...

. * ''Principes d'embryogénie, de zoogénie et de tératogénie'', 1859 - Principles of embryology,

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

and teratology.WorldCat Identities
(publications)

References

Other sources

Form and Function a Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology By E. S. Russell
Russell was an “unabashed vitalist” who both rejected and misrepresented the Darwinian formulation of recapitulation defended by Ernst Haeckel (S. Gliboff. 2008. H. G. Bronn, Ernst Haeckel, and the Origins of German Darwinism. MIT Press—see page 22)

* This article incorporates text from an equivalent article at the

Spanish Wikipedia The Spanish Wikipedia () is the Spanish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. It has articles. Started in May 2001, it reached 100,000 articles on 8 March 2006, and 1,000,000 articles on 16 May 2013. It is the -largest Wikip ...

External links