Louis Jurine

Surgeon

He studied surgery in Paris and quickly acquired a great reputation for his expertise in medicine and natural history beyond that which he had in Geneva. He taught courses in anatomy and surgery at the Société des Arts in Geneva and was made honorary professor of zoology at the Academy (today: University of Geneva). He also founded a maternity hospice in 1807 and was awarded prizes for his work on the gasses of the human body, artificial feeding of infants, and pectoral angina.

Naturalist

Upon learning of Spallanzani's experiments with bats, in which Spallanzani showed that bats do not rely on sight when navigating in darkness, Jurine conducted a series of experiments from which he concluded that bats use sound to navigate in darkness.See:

• Peschier (1798) "Extraits des expériences de Jurine sur les chauve-souris qu'on a privé de la vue" (Extracts of Jurine's experiments on bats that have been deprived of sight), Journal de physique, de chimie, d'histoire naturelle … , 46 : 145–148. [in French]
• English translation: (Peschier) (1798) "Experiments on bats deprived of sight," Philosophical Magazine, 1 : 136–140. From p. 140: "From these experiments the author concludes: … that the organ of hearing appears to supply that of sight in the discovery of bodies, and to furnish these animals with different sensations to direct their flight, and enable them to avoid those obstacles which may present themselves."

Collections

Jurine’s collections of Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hemiptera are in the Natural History Museum of Geneva.

Works

• Nouvelle méthode de classer les Hyménoptères et les Diptères. Hyménoptères. Genève (J.J. Paschoud) 1807. (Only 250 copies of this work were issued.) PDF
• Observations sur les ailes des hyménoptères. Mem. Accad. Sci. Torino 24 (1820): 177–214.
• Histoire des monocles, qui se trouvent aux environs de Genève. I-XVI, 1-260, 22 plates, Genève (J.J. Paschoud) 1820. PDF

References

• Sigrist, René; Barras, Vincent; Ratcliff, Marc, Louis Jurine, chirurgien et naturaliste (1751–1819) (Chêne-Bourg, Switzerland: Bibliothèque d'Histoire des Sciences, 1999). [in French] (with list of works)