Charles Henri Georges Pouchet (26 February 1833 – 29 March 1894) was a Frenchnaturalist andanatomist. He served as a professor of comparative anatomy in theMuseum d'Histoire Naturelle. He was also involved in marine biology studies, with an interest in fisheries and cetaceans. He was also a writer of popular science content and interacted with French writers of the period.
Pouchet was born inRouen, the son of naturalist and spontaneous generation supporterFélix Archimède Pouchet (1800–1872). He went to study at the Collège royal de la ville under Frédéric Preisser and learned natural history in the galleries of the museum alongside his father. From his mother he learned to speak English and was able to make contact with naturalists likeRichard Owen. He became an assistant at the museum in 1851 and in 1855 he was specimen preparator at a school. In 1856 he was included on an expedition team byFerdinand de Lesseps to seek the source of the Nile river underCount of Escayrac de Lauture. He was interested in anthropology and in 1864 he wrote a medical thesis on skin coloration. In 1856 he took part in an expedition to the Nile. In 1865 he became chief of anatomical work at theMuséum national d'histoire naturelle inParis. He was dismissed on 18 March 1869 due to an article he wrote inL'Avenir national. In that article he wrote that the museum had ceased to be a place of pure sciences and that it had fallen prey to a cult of agriculture. He then went back to studies wrote a thesis in the natural sciences relating to memory and the brain. In 1870 he became interested in fish biology and began to study embryology and neurology in fish at the maritime laboratory atConcarneau.[1] During theFranco-Prussian War he was posted as a physician in the army. After the war he began to offer courses on histology and became deputy director of the histology laboratory at the École des hautes études. At Concarneau he continued research on the coloration of fish and crustaceans. In 1875 he worked forPaul Bert handling physiology courses at the Sorbonne. In 1876 he became a lecturer at theÉcole Normale Supérieure. In 1879 he succeededPaul Gervais to the chair of comparative anatomy. From 1879 to 1894 he was professor ofcomparative anatomy at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. At the same time he managed the Concarneau laboratory along withCharles Robin.[2] He became especially interested in the anatomy of cetaceans[3] and visited Lisbon and the Azores in 1880. In 1881 he visited Lapland. Another interest was in the blood of animals. In 1892 he was part of an early scientific polar expedition toSvalbard andJan Mayen.[4][5]
Pouchet made contributions in several scientific fields, and specialised in comparative anatomy of fishes and whales. He was a prime advocate ofpolygenism, and was the author of ananthropological work titledDe la Pluralité des races humaines (1858), which was translated into English asThe Plurality of the Human Race in 1864 by the Anthropological Society. He took an interest in the history of biology and commented on the views of Aristotle.[6] Pouchet was involved in popular science writing and edited scientific content for several periodicals includingLe Siècle,La Revue des Deux Mondes,La Philosophie positiv,Le Temps andLa Revue scientifique. He was a friend ofFlaubert,Maupassant andCéard. Maupassant dedicated the short storyLa Mère sauvage to Pouchet in 1884.[7]
