Georges Louis Duvernoy

Who was Georges Louis Duvernoy?

Georges Louis Duvernoy was a French zoologist. He assisted Georges Cuvier in writing Leçons d'anatomie comparée. He was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1847 and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1851.

He studied in Stuttgart, Strasbourg, and Paris, and in 1802 was asked by Cuvier to help edit his masterpiece on comparative anatomy. From notes and counsel from Cuvier, Duvernoy prepared the last three volumes of Leçons d'anatomie comparée, writings that involved respiration, circulation, digestive organs, et al.

In 1805 he returned to Montbéliard, where he worked as a practitioner of medicine. In 1827 he was elected professor to the Faculty of Sciences at Strasbourg, and during the next ten years published a number of treatises on anatomical subjects. After the death of Cuvier in 1832, he worked at arranging his papers for publication. In 1837 he became a professor of natural history at the Collège de France.