title: [« What is the best theory of generation? » : Arguments and debates among students from the Royal Medical Society in eighteenth-century Edinburgh].
abstract: This article proposes a different approach to the long generation controversy that divided naturalists in eighteenth-century Europe between those in favour of preformationism, on the one hand, and supporters of the theory of epigenesis on the other. This controversy has mostly been studied through the publications of the intellectual elite, that was constituted of medical doctors, natural historians, philosophers, and theologians. Rather than reviewing the ideas and antagonisms of the direct agents of the controversy, I will attempt to approach it from the margins. What is the legacy of a long-term controversy when it seems to be over? How was such an extended controversy perceived by contemporaries that would only have a fragmented access to quarrel? What is the role of scientific disputes in the education of doctors? I will address these questions by analyzing four essays written by medical students of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh.
authors.affiliation: Université Paris-Diderot, Paris, France. sophie.vasset@univ-paris-diderot.fr.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vasset
keywords: Generation; Royal medical society of Edinburgh; eighteenth-century Scotland; medical education