Historical Portrait of the Progress of Ichthyology: From Its Origins to Our Own Time

A founder of comparative anatomy and giant of 19th-century biology, Georges Cuvier began publishing his 22-volume "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons" in 1828. Cuvier's history became a landmark survey in the science of fishes, delving back before the Greeks to the Egyptians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians. As an introduction to this monumental work, his first volume traced the development of the study of fishes as he understood it and outlined the criteria for classification that his own work would follow. This essay - arguably the first attempt at comprehensive marine history - now appears in English translation, accompanied by annotations. Theodore Pietsch's commentary on Cuvier's "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons" brings this work to light and its historical significance. It should be useful reading to ichthyologists, evolutionary biologists and historians of science.