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Gideon Mantell | |
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| Born | (1790-02-03)3 February 1790 Lewes, Sussex, England |
| Died | 10 November 1852(1852-11-10) (aged 62) London, England |
| Occupation(s) | Surgeon,palaeontologist |
| Known for | DescribingIguanodon |
| Spouse | Mary Ann Mantell |
| Relatives | Walter Mantell (son) |
| Awards | Wollaston Medal(1835) Royal Medal(1849) |
Gideon Algernon MantellMRCSFRS (3 February 1790 – 10 November 1852) was an Englishobstetrician,geologist andpalaeontologist. His attempts to reconstruct the structure and life ofIguanodon began the scientific study of dinosaurs: in 1822 he was responsible for the discovery (and the eventual identification) of the firstfossil teeth, and later much of the skeleton, ofIguanodon. Mantell's work on theCretaceous of southern England was also important.
Mantell was born inLewes, Sussex as the fifth-born child of Thomas Mantell, a shoemaker,[1] and Sarah Austen.[2] He was raised in a small cottage in St. Mary's Lane with his two sisters and four brothers. As a youth, he showed a particular interest in the field of geology. He explored pits and quarries in the surrounding areas, discoveringammonites, shells ofsea urchins, fish bones,coral, and worn-out remains of dead animals.[3] The Mantell children could not study at local grammar schools because the elder Mantell was a follower of theMethodist church and the 12 free schools were reserved for children who had been brought up in theAnglican faith. As a result, Gideon was educated at adame school in St. Mary's Lane, and learned basic reading and writing from an old woman. After the death of his teacher, Mantell was schooled by John Button, a philosophically radicalWhig who shared similar political beliefs with Mantell's father.[4] Mantell spent two years with Button, before being sent to his uncle, a Baptist minister, inSwindon, for a period of private study.
Mantell returned to Lewes at age 15. With the help of a local Whig party leader, Mantell secured anapprenticeship with a local surgeon named James Moore.[5] He served as an apprentice to Moore in Lewes for a period of five years, in which he took care of Mantell's dining, lodging and medical issues. Mantell's early apprenticeship duties included cleaning vials, as well as separating and arrangingdrugs. Soon, he learned how to make pills and otherpharmaceutical products. He delivered Moore's medicines, kept his accounts, wrote out bills and extracted teeth from his patients.[6] On 11 July 1807, Thomas Mantell died at the age of 57.[7] He left his son some money for his future studies.[8] As his time in apprenticeship began to wind down, he began to anticipate his medical education. He began to teach himselfhuman anatomy, and he ultimately detailed his new-found knowledge in a volume entitledThe Anatomy of the Bones, and the Circulation of Blood, which contained dozens of detailed drawings of fetal and adult skeletal features.[6] Soon, Mantell began his formal medical education in London. He received his diploma as a Member of theRoyal College of Surgeons in 1811.[9] Four days later, he received a certificate from the Lying-in Charity for Married Women at Their Own Habitations that allowed him to act inmidwifery duties.
He returned to Lewes, and immediately formed a partnership with his former master, James Moore. In the wake of thecholera,typhoid andsmallpox epidemics, Mantell found himself quite busy attending to more than 50 patients a day and delivering between 200 and 300 babies a year.[11] As he later recalled, he would have to stay up for "six or seven nights in succession" due to his overwhelming doctoral duties. He was also able to increase his practice's profits from £250 to £750 a year.[12] Although mainly occupied with running his busy country medical practice, he spent his little free time pursuing his passion, geology, often working into the early hours of the morning, identifying fossil specimens he found at the marl pits inHamsey.[13] In 1813, Mantell began to correspond withJames Sowerby. Sowerby, a naturalist and illustrator who catalogued fossil shells, received from Mantell many fossilised specimens. In appreciation for the specimens Mantell had provided, Sowerby named one of the speciesAmmonites mantelli.[14] On 7 December, Mantell was elected as a fellow of theLinnean Society of London. Two years later, he published his first paper, on the characteristics of the fossils found in the Lewes area.[15]
In 1816, he marriedMary Ann Woodhouse, the 20-year-old daughter of one of his former patients who had died three years earlier. Since she was not 21 and still technically a minor under English law, she had to obtain permission from her mother and a special licence to marry Mantell. After obtaining consent and the licence, she married Mantell on 4 May at St. Marylebone Church.[15] That year, he purchased his own medical practice and took up an appointment at the Royal Artillery Hospital, atRingmer, Lewes.
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Inspired byMary Anning's sensational discovery of a fossilised animal resembling a hugecrocodile (later identified as anichthyosaur) atLyme Regis in Dorset, Mantell became passionately interested in the study of the fossilised animals and plants found in his area. The fossils he had collected from the region, nearThe Weald in Sussex, were from thechalk downlands covering the county. The chalk is part of the UpperCretaceousSystem and the fossils it contains aremarine in origin. But by 1819, Mantell had begun acquiring fossils from a quarry, atWhitemans Green, nearCuckfield. These included the remains ofterrestrial andfreshwaterecosystems, at a time when all the known fossil remains from Cretaceous England, hitherto, were marine in origin. He named the new strata theStrata ofTilgate Forest, after an historical wooded area and it was later shown to belong to theLower Cretaceous.
By 1820, he had started to find very large bones at Cuckfield, even larger than those discovered byWilliam Buckland, atStonesfield in Oxfordshire. Then, in 1822, shortly before finishing his first book (The Fossils of South Downs), his wife found several large teeth (although some historians contend that they were in fact discovered by himself), the origin of which he could not ascertain. In 1821 Mantell planned his next book on the geology of Sussex. It was an immediate success with two hundred subscribers including KingGeorge IV atCarlton House Palace, who wrote a letter stating, "His majesty is pleased to command that his name should be placed at the head of the subscription list for four copies."[This quote needs a citation]
How the king heard of Mantell is unknown, but Mantell's response is known. Galvanised and encouraged, Mantell showed the teeth to other scientists but they were dismissed as belonging to a fish ormammal and from a more recent rock layer than the otherTilgate Forest fossils. The eminent Frenchanatomist,Georges Cuvier, identified the teeth as those of arhinoceros.
Although according toCharles Lyell, Cuvier made this statement after a late party and apparently had some doubts when reconsidering the matter when he awoke, fresh in the morning. "The next morning he told me that he was confident that it was something quite different." Strangely, this change of opinion did not make it back to Britain where Mantell was mocked for his error. Mantell was still convinced that the teeth had come from theMesozoic strata and finally recognised that they resembled those of theiguana, but were twenty times larger. He surmised that the owner of the remains must have been at least 60 feet (18 metres) in length.
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He tried in vain to convince his peers that the fossils were from Mesozoic strata, by carefully studying rock layers.William Buckland famously disputed Mantell's assertion, by claiming that the teeth were of fish.
When it was proved Mantell was correct in 1825, the only question was what to call his new reptile. His original name was "Iguana-saurus" but he then received a letter fromWilliam Daniel Conybeare: "Your discovery of the analogy between the Iguana and the fossil teeth is very interesting but the name you propose will hardly do, because it is equally applicable to the recent iguana. Iguanoides or Iguanodon would be better."[This quote needs a citation] Mantell took this advice to heart and called his creatureIguanodon.
Years later, Mantell had acquired enough fossil evidence to show that the dinosaur's forelimbs were much shorter than its hind legs, therefore proving they were not built like a mammal as claimed by SirRichard Owen. Mantell went on to demonstrate that fossilvertebrae, which Owen had attributed to a variety of different species, all belonged toIguanodon. He also named a new genus of dinosaur calledHylaeosaurus and as a result became an authority on prehistoric reptiles.
In 1833, Mantell relocated toBrighton but his medical practice suffered. He was almost rendered destitute, but for the town's council, which promptly transformed his house into a museum. There he gave a series of lectures that were published in 1838 with the titleThe wonders of geology, or, A familiar exposition of geological phenomena: being the substance of a course of lectures delivered at Brighton.[16] The museum in Brighton ultimately failed as a result of Mantell's habit of waiving the entrance fee. Financially destitute, Mantell offered to sell the entire collection to theBritish Museum in 1838 for£5,000, accepting the counter-offer of £4,000. He moved toClapham Common in South London, where he continued his work as a doctor.
Mary Mantell left her husband in 1839. That same year, Gideon's sonWalter emigrated toNew Zealand. Walter later sent his father some important fossils from New Zealand. Gideon's daughter, Hannah, died in 1840.
In 1841 he began to suffer from what would eventually be diagnosed as scoliosis, possibly precipitated by a carriage accident. He got stuck in the reins and was dragged along for 5 miles before arriving at his destination.[17] Despite being bent, crippled and in constant pain, he continued to work with fossilised reptiles and published a number of scientific books and papers until his death in November the 10th 1852. He moved toPimlico in 1844 and began to takeopium, as a painkiller, in 1845.
On 10 November 1852, Mantell took an overdose of opium and later lapsed into a coma. He died that afternoon. Hispost-mortem by William Adams showed that he had been suffering from severe lumbarscoliosis, leading to theAdams Forward Bend Test as a diagnostic tool. A section of Mantell'sspine was removed, preserved and stored on a shelf at theRoyal College of Surgeons of England. It remained there until 1969 when it was destroyed due to lack of space.[19]
Mantell's surgery, on the south side of Clapham Common, is now a dental surgery.
At the time of his death Mantell was credited with discovering four of the five genera of dinosaurs then known.[20]
In 2000, in commemoration of Mantell's discovery and his contribution to the science of palaeontology, theMantell Monument was unveiled at Whiteman's Green, Cuckfield. The monument has been confirmed as the location of theIguanodon fossils that Mantell first described in 1822.
He is buried atWest Norwood Cemetery within asarcophagus attributed toAmon Henry Wilds[18] that replicates the sanctuary ofNatakamani's Temple ofAmun. (The nameammonite is, coincidentally, derived from Amun.)
Sixty-seven books and memoirs appear in Agassiz and Strickland'sBibliographia Zoologiæ, and forty-eight scientific papers in theRoyal Society's Catalogue.
Works by or aboutGideon Mantell atWikisource
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