Système dentaire des Mammifères et des Oiseaux sous le point de vue de la composition et de la détermination de chaque sorte de ses parties, embrassant sous de nouveaux rapports les principaux faits de l'organisation dentaire chez l'homme. [Première partie. De l'existence d'un appareil dentaire chez les oiseaux, principalement observé chez le perroquet, ou système dentaire des oiseaux]

Description:

Text French. First edition, complete with the large engraved folding plate ('Système dentaire des oiseaux'). Rare foundational text in pre-Darwinian evolutionary biology, embryology, and comparative anatomy. Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) was a French naturalist who established the principle of 'unity of composition' (unité de composition), postulating a single consistent structural plan basic to all animals as a major tenet of comparative anatomy. Geoffroy analysed avian embryos to discover hidden, vestigial tooth buds. By proving that living, toothless birds carry the ancestral blueprint for dentition, this work directly challenged Georges Cuvier’s doctrine of fixed species and served as a crucial evolutionary stepping stone for Charles Darwin.

Condition

8vo (215x135mm), orig. printed wrappers, rather worn with some loss at corners and spine entirely perished with wrappers historically secured with two gummed paper strips. Stitching tender but holding. A few page corners dog-eared. Some foxing/spotting, heavier to preliminaries. Short marginal tear to folding plate.

Provenance: Ink signature ('Robert Thos. Hulme') and light contemporary doodling to wrappers. Robert Thomas Hulme, M.R.C.S., F.L.S. (1816-1883) was a pioneering 19th-century British dental surgeon, comparative anatomist, and author of The Teeth in Health and Disease (1862).