Joseph Pelletier. 1788–1842.
(Discoverer—with Caventou—of Quinine.)
Pierre Robiquet (born at Rennes in 1780, died at Paris, 1840) served his apprenticeship to pharmacy at Lorient, and afterwards studied under Fourcroy and Vauquelin at Paris. His studies were interrupted by the conscription, which compelled him to serve under Napoleon in the Army of Italy. Returning to pharmacy after Marengo, he ultimately became the proprietor of a pharmacy, and to that business he added the manufacture of certain fine chemicals. His first scientific work was the separation of asparagin, accomplished in association with Vauquelin, in 1805. His later studies were in connection with opium (from which he extracted codeine), on liquorice, cantharides, barytes, and nickel.
André Constant Dumeril (born at Amiens, 1774, died 1860) was a physician, but distinguished himself as a naturalist and anatomist. He had been associated with Cuvier in early life. Latterly he was consulting physician to Louis Philippe.
Antoine Louis Brongniart (born 1742, died 1804) was the son of a pharmacist of Paris, and became himself pharmacien to Louis XVI. He also served the Convention as a military pharmacist, and was placed on the Council of Health of the Army. In association with Hassenfratz who was one of the organisers of the insurrection of August 10th, 1792, and himself a professor at the School of Mines, Brongniart edited a “Journal des Sciences, Arts, et Metiers” during the Revolution.
The next medallion memorialises Scheele, the great Swedish pharmacist and chemist, of whose career details have already been given.
Pierre Bayen (born at Chalons s/Marne, 1725, died 1798) was an army pharmacist for about half of his life, and to him was largely due the organisation of that service. He was with the French Army in Germany all through the Seven Years’ War, 1757–1763. Among his scientific works were examinations of many of the natural mineral waters of France, and a careful investigation into the alleged danger of tin vessels used for cooking. Two German chemists, Margraff and Henkel, had reported the presence of arsenic in tin utensils generally, and the knowledge of this fact had produced a panic among housekeepers. Bayen went into the subject thoroughly and was able to publish a reassuring report. To him, too, belongs the glory of having been one of the chemists before Lavoisier to prove that metals gain and do not lose weight on calcination in the air.
Pierre Joseph Macquer, Master of Pharmacy and Doctor of Medicine (born 1718, died 1784), came of a noble Scotch family who had settled in France on account of their adherence to the Catholic faith, made some notable chemical discoveries, and became director of the royal porcelain factory at Sèvres. He worked on kaolin, magnesia, arsenic, gold, platinum, and the diamond. The bi-arseniate of arsenic was for a long time known as Macquer’s arsenical salt. Macquer was not quite satisfied with Stahl’s phlogiston theory, and tried to modify it; but he would not accept the doctrines of Lavoisier. He proposed to substitute light for phlogiston, and regarded light as precipitated from the air in certain conditions. These notions attracted no support.
Guillaume François Rouelle (born near Caen, 1703, died 1770) was in youth an enthusiastic student of chemistry, the rudiments of which he taught himself in the village smithy. Going to Paris he obtained a situation in the pharmacy which had been Lemery’s, and subsequently established one of his own in the Rue Jacob. There he commenced courses of private lectures which were characterised by such intimate knowledge, and flavoured with such earnestness and, as appears from the stories given by pupils, by a good deal of eccentricity, that they became the popular resort of chemical students. Lavoisier is believed to have attended them. Commencing his lectures in full professional costume, he would soon become animated and absorbed in his subject, and throwing off his gown, cap, wig and cravat, delighted his hearers with his vigour. Rouelle was offered the position of apothecary to the king, but declined the honour as it would have involved the abandonment of his lectures. His chief published work was the classification of salts into neutral, acid, and basic. He also closely investigated medicinal plants, and got so near to the discovery of alkaloids as the separation of what he called the immediate principles, making a number of vegetable extracts.
Etienne François Geoffrey (born 1672, died 1731), the son of a Paris apothecary, himself of high reputation, for it was at his house that the first meetings were held which resulted in the formation of the Academy of Sciences, studied pharmacy at Montpellier, and qualified there. Returning to Paris he went through the medical course and submitted for his doctorate three theses which show the bent of his mind. The first examined whether all diseases have one origin and can be cured by one remedy, the second aimed to prove that the philosophic physician must also be an operative chemist, and the third dealt with the inquiry whether man had developed from a worm. Geoffrey was attached as physician to the English embassy for some time and was elected to the Royal Society of London. Afterwards he became professor of medicine and pharmacy at the College of France. His chief works were pharmacological researches on iron, on vitriol, on fermentation, and on some mineral waters. He wrote a notable treatise on Materia Medica.