GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE ÉTIENNE (1772-1844) NATURALISTE.

AUTOGRAPHIC MANUSCRIT, Paupières; 9 and a half pages in-4 plus folder with title. Scientific manuscript of first draft, with erasures and corrections, and three versions of the beginning. "The eyelids are a kind of curtain that plays in front of the ocular chamber to open or close it: spread over the organ of vision, these devices place the eye at the bottom of a purse and are for him tutelary veils that protect the rest of these organs, or make him avoid the painful contact of a too bright light. These general functions are subdivided as the eyelids themselves are subdivided according to the conditions of their organization"... He distinguishes between the external and internal eyelids (in human anatomy we only know the first ones), and speaks about their origin, their appearance, their action under the spring "of the same and principal nervous branch"...