Abstract

In 1821 the French Académie Royale des Sciences sponsored a prize competition on the causes of animal heat. Carefully designing the contest to serve several interests, the Académie (especially Cuvier and Berthollet) sought to defend Lavoisier's theory and method for studying animal heat and to restore a pre-1789 ideal of non-utilitarian scientific practice. Changing standards of precision in physical research, however, sabotaged these intentions. Even with improved experimental apparatus and techniques, the chief contestants could not quantitatively confirm Lavoisier's theory. Unpublished documents reveal anonymous entrants who refused to accept the Académie's definition of the question. The 1821 competition, then, rendered Lavoisier's theory more dubious than ever in the eyes of contemporary physiological writers