Robert Edmond GrantMDFRCPEdFRSFRSEFZSFGSFKSTFDSFFWHSFMSFFCSD (11 November 1793 – 23 August 1874) was a British anatomist and zoologist.
Grant was born at Argyll Square inEdinburgh (demolished to create Chambers Street), the son of Alexander Grant WS, and his wife, Jane Edmond.[1] He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh then studied Medicine atEdinburgh University. Having obtained his MD at Edinburgh in 1814, Grant gave up medical practice in favour ofmarine biology and thezoology ofinvertebrates, living on a legacy from his father. As amaterialist andfreethinker, and politicallyradical, he was open to ideas in biology that were considered subversive in the climate of opinion prevailing in Britain after theNapoleonic Wars. He citedErasmus Darwin'sZoönomia in his doctoral dissertation, a work which introduced the idea of evolution in poetical form.
In 1824 he was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh his proposer beingDr John Barclay.[2]
He became one of the foremost naturalists of the early 19th century at Edinburgh and subsequently the first Professor ofComparative Anatomy atUniversity College London. He is noted for his influence on the youngCharles Darwin and his espousal ofGeoffroy's ideas onevolution.[3]
Grant held theUCL chair of comparative anatomy for life (1827–1874); he was elected FRS in 1836; he became Fullerian Professor ofPhysiology at theRoyal Institution 1837–8, and in 1847 Dean of the UCL Medical Faculty. In 1853 he becameSwiney lecturer in geology to theBritish Museum.
Grant travelled widely, visiting universities in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. He came into contact with the French zoologistÉtienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire who promulgated a view on evolution similar to that ofJean-Baptiste Lamarck's.
Grant studied marine life around theFirth of Forth, collecting specimens around the shores near a house he took atPrestonpans as well as from fishing boats, and becoming an expert on the biology of sponges and sea-slugs. He considered that the same laws of life affected all organisms, frommonad to man (in this contextmonad means a hypothetical primitive living organism or unit of organic life). Following Geoffroy, Grant arranged life into a chain, or an escalator, which was kept moving upwards by the appearance of spontaneously emergingmonads at its base.
In 1824 Grant gave lectures on invertebrates, covering theircomparative anatomy; these were in place ofJohn Barclay. He was also elected a fellow of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh.[4]
Grant was a stalwart of thePlinian Society for student naturalists, whichCharles Darwin joined in the autumn of 1826 on starting his second year of medical studies at Edinburgh University. Darwin became Grant's keenest student and assisted him with collecting specimens.
During that winter and spring Grant published twenty papers in Edinburgh journals, mostly onsponges, eggs and larvae, which won him an international reputation, with the papers being translated into French. Grant took Darwin as a guest to theWernerian society which was held inRobert Jameson's room, with membership restricted to MDs; there Darwin saw a demonstration byJohn James Audubon. On 24 March 1827 Grant announced to the society that black spores often found inoyster shells were the eggs of a skateleech, and published a paper on this discovery. This discovery was in fact Darwin's and Darwin lost interest in Grant as a mentor after this event.[5] Darwin himself made a presentation on 27 March announcing this and his observations onsea-slug larvae to the Plinian Society.
Darwin contributed to Grant's investigations into the 'unity of plan' of animals which culminated with Grant's announcement to the Wernerian Society that he had identified thepancreas inmolluscs, demonstrated with a pinned-out sea-slug. This showed a homology between these simple creatures and mammals, tying them into his controversial chain of life.
Grant then became Professor of Comparative Anatomy at University College London, a post he held from 1827 until his death in 1874. Grant's pay was £39 per annum.[6] He was involved in radical and democratic causes, campaigning for a new Zoological Society museum run professionally rather than by aristocratic amateurs; and tried to turn theBritish Museum into a research institution run along French lines. He was opposed byTories who attacked him for supporting "the reptile press" and its "blasphemous derision of the truths of Christianity" and succeeded in getting him voted out of a post at theZoological Society of London.Richard Owen, vehemently opposed to Grant's evolution theory, succeeded in supplanting him.
Darwin visited Grant in 1831 to get advice on storing specimens immediately before setting out onthe Voyage of the Beagle. When Darwin returned from his voyage, Grant was one of those to offer to examine his specimens, but was turned down: they do not seem to have had further contact.[7]
On his frequent trips to the continent Grant became close friends with Geoffroy, a leading French comparative anatomist. TheEdinburgh extramural medical schools were fertile ground for Geoffroy's ideas, and Scottish radicals became Geoffroyan disciples. These includedWilliam A. F. Browne, a phrenologist who later turned his energies to asylum reform and neurological psychiatry. Grant took these ideas to London, where he introducedhomology (the basic Geoffroyan technique) to his UCL students. He also advanced Lamarck andde Blainville, whose ideas were of similar vein, and included ideas ofrecapitulation theory.[8]
Geoffroy was adeist, and his theory was not a theory ofcommon descent, but a working-out of existing potential in a given type. For him, the environment causes a direct induction of organic change. This opinionErnst Mayr labels as 'Geoffroyism'.[9] It is definitely not what Lamarck believed (for Lamarck, a change inhabits is what changes the animal).Lawrence had argued in 1816 that the climate does not directly cause the differences between human races.
Geoffroy's comparative anatomy featured the comparison of the same organ or group of bones through a range of animals. He argued (1818–22) for the 'unity of composition' of all vertebrates.[10] One of his major discoveries was the homology of the opercular plates of thegill cover of fishes with the innerear ossicles of mammals. Geoffroy's methods worked well for vertebrates, but when he compared vertebrates to invertebrates by turning invertebrates upside down and partly inside out – "every animal is either inside or outside its vertebral column" – he met hisnemesis. TheGeoffroy-Cuvier debate in Paris before the Académie des Sciences (15 February 1830) sawGeorges Cuvier demolish his claim that the four Cuvierian branches of the animal kingdom could be reduced to one.[11] The relation between the ideas of Geoffroy and Cuvier can be expressed thus: whereas with Cuvier structure determines function, with Geoffroy function determines structure. The issue between them, however, was religious, political and social as well as scientific.[12]
Grant first went public on the subject of evolution in 1826.[13] Here he speculated that 'transformation' might affect all organisms. He noted that successive strata seemed to show a progressive, natural succession of fossil animals. These forms "have evolved from a primitive model" by "external circumstances": this is a clear Lamarckian statement. Also, Grant accepted a common origin for plants and animals, and the basic units of life ('monads'), he proposed, were spontaneously generated. This is bothreductionism and materialism. The programme went further than either Geoffroy or Lamarck, but was not a complete theory of evolution.
Grant was a 'progressive' in both social and scientific terms. He was widely and probably correctly regarded as a materialist oratheist: there was no place for thesupernatural in his account of biology. He was a supporter ofThomas Wakley,The Lancet and theBMA, all of whom were anti-establishment in their day. The main idea of the radical reformers was that government should take over or at least oversee the licensing powers of the medical corporations.[14]
When Grant came to London he was not eligible to become a Fellow of theRoyal College of Physicians of London (RCP) because he was not a graduate ofOxford orCambridge. Others who wished to practice in England had to take a licence from the RCP or acquire an apothecary's qualification. Grant refused to take out a London licence from the RCP, and so cut himself off from a lucrative source of income. He campaigned all his life for reform to both the RCP and theRoyal College of Surgeons of London.[15]
Wakley responded to Grant's support for theLancet and its radical programme with fulsome praise of Grant, and printed the text of all 60 lectures of Grant's comparative anatomy course in theLancet for 1833–4. Reviewers agreed that Grant's course was the first 'comprehensive and accessible' exposition of philosophical anatomy in English.[16][17]
Grant died at home at 2 Euston Grove, Euston Square, London,[18] still occupying the chair at UCL, a forgotten anachronism. In his will he bequeathed his estate, of less than £1,500, to UCL.[19] He was buried on the eastern side ofHighgate Cemetery.
The second half of Grant's long professional life was not successful, and his style of teaching zoology was swept aside byT. H. Huxley's discipleE. Ray Lankester, in the new Jodrell Chair of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. Lankester did, however, retain, reorganise and expand the college zoology museum, now known as theGrant Museum of Zoology at UCL.
Robert Edmond Grant is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of African snake,Gonionotophis grantii.[20]
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