"Monstre". Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and the Science of Monstrosity -

Abstract

 This article aims at analyzing the entry “Monstre”, written by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1827 and included in the Dictionnaire classique d’histoire naturelle. Under Etienne Geoffroy the study of monsters brought new heuristic and theoretical approaches to the research fields of anatomy and embryology, and acquired the status of a scientific discipline having its own theoretical foundations and therefore its own standards for classification, seen as non-random means for revealing a groundbreaking knowledge.