Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Boltzmannstrasse 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Hist Philos Life Sci. 2010;32(2-3):155-94.
The essay reconstructs the occurrence of the term "organism" and the transformations of its concept from around 1680 to the middle of the nineteenth century. The different sections refer to individual authors who used the word "organism" and situate its usage in specific historical contexts. After earlier uses of the word in medieval sources, the Latin word "organismus" appeared in 1684 in Stahl's medico-physiological writings. Around 1700, it can be found in French (organisme), English (organism), Italian (organismo) and later also in German (Organismus). During the eighteenth century, the word "organism" generally referred to a specific principle or form of order, often in opposition to the order of "mechanism," that could be applied to plants, animals or the entire world. At the end of the eighteenth century, the term became a generic name for individual living entities with inside-outside-interfaces and an inner "organization" of parts. From around 1830, the word "organism" replaced the expressions "organic" or "organized body" as a recurrent technical term in the emerging biological disciplines.
这篇文章重构了“生物体”一词的出现及其概念从 17 世纪 80 年代到 19 世纪中叶的转变。不同的部分提到了使用过“生物体”一词的个别作者，并将其用法置于特定的历史背景中。在中世纪的文献中有更早的用法之后，拉丁语“organismus”于 1684 年出现在斯塔尔的医学-生理学著作中。大约在 1700 年，它出现在法语（organisme）、英语（organism）、意大利语（organismo）中，后来也出现在德语（Organismus）中。在 18 世纪，“生物体”一词通常指的是一种特定的原则或秩序形式，通常与“机制”的秩序相对立，可以应用于植物、动物或整个世界。在 18 世纪末，这个术语成为了具有内外界面和内在“组织”的个体生物实体的通用名称。从 19 世纪 30 年代左右开始，“生物体”一词取代了“有机的”或“有组织的身体”，成为新兴生物学领域中经常使用的技术术语。
