An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

RÉAUMUR, René Antoine Ferchault de

7 entries
  • 301

Sur les diverses reproductions qui se font dans les écrevisses, les omars, les crabes....

Mém. Acad. roy. Sci (Paris), 226-45., Paris, 1712.

Réaumur showed that crustaceans replace their lost limbs, a fact until then disputed.



Subjects: BIOLOGY › Regeneration
  • 304

Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes. 6 vols.

Paris: Mortier, 17341742.

Réaumur’s greatest work describes the appearance, habits and locality of all the known insects except the beetles, and includes 267 plates. Posthumously published: Tome VII: Histoire des fourmis, (Paris: Paul Lechevalier éditeur, 1928), and Histoire des scarabées (Paris: Paul Le Chevalier éditeur,1955) with 21 plates.

The first portion of Reaumur's encyclopedic work that was translated into English appears to have been his studies of bees. This was translated by Gilles Auguste Bazin and as published as The natural history of bees:  Containing an account of their production, their oeconomy, the manner of their making wax and honey, and the best methods for the improvement and preservation of them (London: J and P. Knapton, 1744). Digital facsimile of the 1744 edition from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link. Digital editions of all six volumes of the original edition of the Mémoires are available from the Internet Archive at these links.



Subjects: ZOOLOGY › Arthropoda › Entomology
  • 2028.5

Avis pour donner du secours à ceux qui l’on croit noyez.

Montpellier: Imprimerie d’Augustin F. Rochard, 1740.

In this unsigned 4-page pamphlet the author argued that those who had been drowned for several hours could be resuscitated. His ideas inspired the formation of the Amsterdam Society (No. 2028.51). This anonymous work was attributed to Réaumur by various contemporary writers on drowning.

Digital facsimile of a 4-page Nancy printing of the pamphlet from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: Resuscitation
  • 979

Sur la digestion des oiseaux.

Hist. Acad. roy. Sci., (1752), 266-307, 461-95, 1756.

Using a pet buzzard, de Réaumur succeeded in isolating the gastric juice and demonstrating its solvent effect on foods.



Subjects: GASTROENTEROLOGY › Anatomy & Physiology of Digestion
  • 9656

The natural history of ants: From an unpublished manuscript in the Academy of Sciences of Paris. Translated and annotated by William Morton Wheeler.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926.

French and English text. The French text was first published in France as the 7th volume of Reaumur's Mémoires, Paris, 1928.



Subjects: ZOOLOGY › Arthropoda › Entomology
  • 12123

Correspondence inédite entre Réaumur et Abraham Trembley, comprenant 113 lettres, recueillies et annotées par Maurice Trembley. Introduction par Emile Guyenot.

Geneva: Georg & Cie, 1943.


Subjects: BIOLOGY › Regeneration, NATURAL HISTORY › History of Natural History
  • 12124

Nature's enigma: The problem of the polyp in the letters of Bonnet, Trembley and Réaumur. By Virginia P. Dawson.

Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1987.


Subjects: BIOLOGY › Regeneration, NATURAL HISTORY › History of Natural History