Antoine Étienne Renaud Augustin Serres (12 September 1786,

Clairac Clairac () is a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department in south-western France. People Clairac is the birthplace of the 17th century poet and dramatist Théophile de Viau and of François de Labat François de Labat (1697–1780) was a F ...

– 22 January 1868,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

) was a French physician and embryologist. He was among the first to formulate the recapitulation theory.

Background

Étienne Serres was the son of Jean Jacques Serres, "maître chirurgien" and Marie Roussel. In 1810 Serres received his medical doctorate in Paris, and afterwards worked at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris and the Hôpital de la Pitié. In 1841 he was chosen president of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des 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 research. It was at th ...

. From 1850 to 1868 he was chair of

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 ...

at the

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loca ...

. Serres' scientific work was influenced by the theories of Lorenz Oken (1779–1851),

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...

(1769–1832), and especially Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844). With German anatomist, Johann Friedrich Meckel (1781–1833), the supposed "

Meckel-Serres Law 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 an ...

" is obtained. This was a theory that attempted to provide a link between

comparative embryology Comparative embryology is the branch of embryology that compares and contrasts embryos of different species, showing how all animals are related. History Aristotle was the earliest person in recorded history to study embryos. Observing embryos of ...

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 () comprise all animal taxon, taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with vertebral column, backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the ...

s and

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

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 recapitulation theory 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 egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the stu ...

recapitulates

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spe ...

" of

Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new s ...

. In the field of teratology, Serres explained the presence of malformations as cases of arrested development or overdevelopment. 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 is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, t ...

and the pterygoid process. * Serres' glands:

Epithelial cell Epithelium or epithelial tissue is one of the four basic types of animal tissue, along with connective tissue, muscle tissue and nervous tissue. It is a thin, continuous, protective layer of compactly packed cells with a little intercell ...

rests found in the subepithelial

connective tissue Connective tissue is one of the four primary types of animal tissue, along with epithelial tissue, muscle tissue, and nervous tissue. It develops from the mesenchyme derived from the mesoderm the middle embryonic germ layer. Connective tissue ...

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 s ...

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. * ''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 ...

of the brain, in the four classes of

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

nervous system In Biology, 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 ...

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

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...

and teratology.WorldCat Identities
(publications)

References

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 ( es, Wikipedia en español) is a Spanish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. It has articles. Started in May 2001, it reached 100,000 articles on March 8, 2006 and 1,000,000 articles on May 16, 201 ...

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Serres, Etienne Officers of the French Academy of Sciences French embryologists 19th-century French physicians Teratologists 1786 births 1868 deaths People from Lot-et-Garonne

Background

Associated eponyms

Selected writings

See also

References

External links