Ceri Crossley
114
Again and again Leroux reinforced this point that life was
supported by a set of interlinked bodily functions. Animal waste that
was returned to the earth enriched the soil. Cats and certain other carnivorous animals instinctively covered their excrement because they
knew that it needed to be mixed with minerals and vegetable matter in
order to become productive. In Leroux’s mind the processes of digestion and excretion became a unifying metaphor, bringing all life forms
together within a greater unity. He was alert to similarities and analogies. He seized upon some remarks made by the Swiss botanist Augustin Pyrame de Candolle who had discovered the presence of small
lumps that resembled excreta on the root systems of certain plants.
20
For Leroux these lumps were more than waste matter. They had a
definite role to play in the grand scheme of things: “Les végétaux,
comme les animaux, digèrent pour autrui, tout en digérant pour euxmêmes; ils reçoivent et donnent; ils rendent, d’une centaine à la terre
par leurs excréments d’une certaine façon ce qu’ils lui empruntent” (p.
96). Leroux argued that it was the excrement discharged by one type
of plant that made the soil fertile when another species grew there. In
other words the efficacy of crop rotation did not depend, as scientists
such as the Swiss chemist Théodore de Saussure had claimed, on new
plants drawing their nourishment from decaying vegetable matter but
on the operation of a natural law. Humans should follow the example
set by the plants and animals and return their own excrement to the
land.
21
Leroux described as a “composé vivant” (p. 119) a soil that
was genuinely healthy and fertile. He accepted that decaying vegetable matter produced humus but he contended that this, on its own, was
___________________________
20 Discussion of such matters was current among specialists. Augustin Pyrame de
Candolle’s ideas were examined by his son, Alphonse de Candolle, in his Introduction
à l’étude de la botanique (Brussels: Meline, 1837), pp. 140-41.
21 According to Leroux it was this guiding principle that lay behind Moses’s injunction in Deutronomy 23. 13: “And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it
shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn
back and cover that which cometh from thee”. Michel Lévy, a leading public health
reformer of the Second Empire agreed with the need to take extremely seriously the
views expressed in the Bible: “les préceptes sanitaires de la Bible procèdent d’un
système de préservation collective, non de quelques conjectures incohérentes”, Traité
d’hygiène publique et privée (Paris: Baillière, 1857), 1, p. 5. Lévy quotes the same
lines from Deutronomy as Leroux and comments: “Ce précepte, que le soleil de
l’Arabie rendait si urgent, est oublié aujourd’hui dans ces mêmes lieux où il a été
dicté, jusque dans les villes, au grand détriment des populations” (p. 8).
114
Again and again Leroux reinforced this point that life was
supported by a set of interlinked bodily functions. Animal waste that
was returned to the earth enriched the soil. Cats and certain other carnivorous animals instinctively covered their excrement because they
knew that it needed to be mixed with minerals and vegetable matter in
order to become productive. In Leroux’s mind the processes of digestion and excretion became a unifying metaphor, bringing all life forms
together within a greater unity. He was alert to similarities and analogies. He seized upon some remarks made by the Swiss botanist Augustin Pyrame de Candolle who had discovered the presence of small
lumps that resembled excreta on the root systems of certain plants.
20
For Leroux these lumps were more than waste matter. They had a
definite role to play in the grand scheme of things: “Les végétaux,
comme les animaux, digèrent pour autrui, tout en digérant pour euxmêmes; ils reçoivent et donnent; ils rendent, d’une centaine à la terre
par leurs excréments d’une certaine façon ce qu’ils lui empruntent” (p.
96). Leroux argued that it was the excrement discharged by one type
of plant that made the soil fertile when another species grew there. In
other words the efficacy of crop rotation did not depend, as scientists
such as the Swiss chemist Théodore de Saussure had claimed, on new
plants drawing their nourishment from decaying vegetable matter but
on the operation of a natural law. Humans should follow the example
set by the plants and animals and return their own excrement to the
land.
21
Leroux described as a “composé vivant” (p. 119) a soil that
was genuinely healthy and fertile. He accepted that decaying vegetable matter produced humus but he contended that this, on its own, was
___________________________
20 Discussion of such matters was current among specialists. Augustin Pyrame de
Candolle’s ideas were examined by his son, Alphonse de Candolle, in his Introduction
à l’étude de la botanique (Brussels: Meline, 1837), pp. 140-41.
21 According to Leroux it was this guiding principle that lay behind Moses’s injunction in Deutronomy 23. 13: “And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it
shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn
back and cover that which cometh from thee”. Michel Lévy, a leading public health
reformer of the Second Empire agreed with the need to take extremely seriously the
views expressed in the Bible: “les préceptes sanitaires de la Bible procèdent d’un
système de préservation collective, non de quelques conjectures incohérentes”, Traité
d’hygiène publique et privée (Paris: Baillière, 1857), 1, p. 5. Lévy quotes the same
lines from Deutronomy as Leroux and comments: “Ce précepte, que le soleil de
l’Arabie rendait si urgent, est oublié aujourd’hui dans ces mêmes lieux où il a été
dicté, jusque dans les villes, au grand détriment des populations” (p. 8).