Number of students and annual variations
The register of attendance to Lamarck’s lecture courses on invertebrate zoology
covers 29 years, from 1795 to 1823. From 1821 to 1823, as Lamarck become blind,
Latreille gave lectures in his place. The register contains 1221 signatures.
However,
- The probable absence of a page for the year V (1797) has deprived us of 39
positions in the register, though not necessarily of 39 signatures.
- 18 names have been cut out, perhaps by an autograph hunter
If we omit multiple inscriptions (students having attended lectures for more
than one year), 973 appear to be the total number of individual participants.
This may not be the final reckoning; doubts do indeed persist on unidentified
signatures, or on possible different versions of the same name.
Yearly average attendance varies from 15 to 70. Two years stand out as
exceptional; 1804, with 130 inscriptions, and 1805, with just 7. Whereas the
possibility of mistakes made in the keeping of the register could not be ruled
out, it is however clear that the years 1804, 1803, 1801 and 1802 were by far
the most successful. Periodical variations probably due to historical
contingencies are also noted: from 1811 to 1815, the yearly average fell to 26,
a possible consequence of the Napoleonic wars. The period 1816-1820 registers an
average of 51 students per year. Attendants from belligerent countries increased
with the Restoration.
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