Did Jean François Barbe Anticipate Charles Darwin?

Abstract

The publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859 is widely suppose to have initiated a revolution in science. In 1837, he broke with dogmatic fixism and argued that the adaptation of populations to their local environment was the cause of transmutation. Some contributors helped him start his reasoning: he indeed expressed his indebtedness to Samuel Rowley for having called his attention to Charles Wells' notions of natural selection. Darwin was certainly not the first to suggest the idea of evolution as an alternative to the creation of species by God. We report on a medical thesis published in 1837 being concluded by an unexpected and important statement related to the appearance of mammals on Earth. It remained unknown but it constitutes a link between the transformative thought of Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, and Darwin's work.