Jeune Bernard, Petersen Hans Christian
Dan Medicinhist Arbog. 2008;36:57-96.
Buffon and Linné were the two greatest naturalists of the 1700s. As they were both born in 1707, their 300 anniversaries were therefore celebrated in France and Sweden. At the celebration meeting at the University of Bourgogne in Dijon - The Buffon Legacy - September 3-6, 2007, we presented the following paper: "Buffon and the longevity of species". In the present paper the life and work of Buffon is introduced on the basis of recent literature, including Jacques Roger's famous biography. Among non-biologists Buffon has nearly been forgotten, even though in the 1700s he was considered to be at the same level as the most famous French thinkers of the Enlightenment - Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. His largest contributions were the publication of his comprehensive "Histoire naturelle" and his long and significant leadership of "Jardin du Roi", which he built up to become one of the best scientific institutions of Europe. Buffon's scientific contributions wereas overshadowed by those of Linné, as it was his classification system, which became dominant all overn Europe. Buffon's student Lamarck and later Darwin contributed by pushing Buffon in oblivion of history, even though Darwin valued him highly. However, in recent decades Buffon is experiencing a renaissance in connection with the increasing interest in biological anthropology, biogeography, ethology, and ecology, as well as on account of his modern species concept.
布丰和林奈是18世纪两位最伟大的博物学家。由于他们都出生于1707年，因此在法国和瑞典都举办了他们诞辰300周年的纪念活动。在2007年9月3日至6日于第戎的勃艮第大学举行的“布丰遗产”庆祝会议上，我们发表了以下论文：《布丰与物种的寿命》。在本文中，我们基于近期的文献，包括雅克·罗歇的著名传记，介绍了布丰的生平与著作。在非生物学家中，布丰几乎已被遗忘，尽管在18世纪他被认为与启蒙运动时期最著名的法国思想家——孟德斯鸠、伏尔泰、卢梭和狄德罗处于同一水平。他最大的贡献是出版了他的综合性著作《自然史》，以及长期且卓有成效地领导了“皇家植物园”，他将其打造成为欧洲最好的科学机构之一。布丰的科学贡献被林奈的贡献所掩盖，因为林奈的分类系统在全欧洲占据了主导地位。布丰的学生拉马克以及后来的达尔文，使得布丰逐渐被历史遗忘，尽管达尔文对他评价颇高。然而，近几十年来，由于对生物人类学、生物地理学、动物行为学和生态学的兴趣日益浓厚，以及布丰现代物种概念的影响，布丰正经历着一场复兴。
