Author: Dawson, Virginia P.
Title: Nature's Enigma: The Problem of the Polyp in the Letters of Bonnet, Trembley and Reaumur
Description: Philadelphia, American Philosophical Soc. 1987. orig.cloth. 24x15cm, ix,266 pp, Series: Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 174.. Textual illustrations. Minor rubbing, slight page-edge soil, VG. dustwrapper ¶ Contents: Introduction; The Ragged Cartesian Fabric of 18th-Century Biology; Geneva: The Cultural Matrix: The Religious Controversy; Education Under Cramer & Calandrini; The Discovery of the Polyp: The Influence of Bonnet's Discovery of Parthenogenesis; The Trembley-Réaumur Letters on the Polyp; The Polyp's Natural Modes of Reproduction: Budding and Eggs; Boerhaave's Definition & Turning the Polyp Inside Out; The Leiden 'Mé moires'; Bonnet's Response to the Discovery & His Worm with Two Tails; Metaphysical Debate in Geneva; Conclusion; Appendices: The Bonnet-Trembley Correspondence; The Bonner-Cramer Correspondence; The Bonnet-Réaumur, Trembley-Réaumur Letters.

Keywords: History of Science, Freshwater Biology, Eighteenth Century, Charles Bonnet, Abraham Trembley, Polyp Polyps, R.-A. Reaumur, Reproduction,