The School of Pharmacy of Paris, built in 1880, honours a number of
pharmacists of historic fame by placing a series of medallions on the
façade of the building, as well as statues of two specially eminent
representatives of the profession in the Court of Honour. These two are
Vauquelin and Parmentier.
[Illustration: ÉCOLE DE PHARMACIE, PARIS.
(From photo sold at School.)
]
Louis Nicolas Vauquelin was director of the School from its foundation
in 1803 until his death in 1829. He also held professorships at the
School of Mines, at the Polytechnic School, and with the Faculty
of Medicine. He began his career as a boy in the laboratory of a
pharmacist at Rouen, and later got a situation with M. Cheradame,
a pharmacist in Paris. Cheradame was related to Fourcroy, to whom
he introduced his pupil. Fourcroy paid him £12 a year with board
and lodging, but he proved such an indefatigable worker that in no
long time he became the colleague, the friend, and the indispensable
substitute of his master in his analyses as well as in his lectures. He
is cited as the discoverer of chromium, of glucinium, and of several
animal products; but his most important work was a series of chemical
investigations on belladonna, cinchona, ipecacuanha, and other drugs,
which it is recognised opened the way for the definite separation of
some of the most valuable of the alkaloids accomplished afterwards by
Pelletier, Caventou, Robiquet, and others. Vauquelin published more
than 250 scientific articles.
[Illustration VAUQUELIN.
(Origin unknown.)]
Antoine Augustin Parmentier (born 1737, died 1813), after serving
an apprenticeship with a pharmacist at Montpellier, joined the
pharmaceutical service in the army, and distinguished himself in the
war in Germany, especially in the course of an epidemic by which the
French soldiers suffered seriously. He was taken prisoner five times,
and at one period had to support himself almost entirely on potatoes.
On the last occasion he obtained employment with a Frankfort chemist
named Meyer, who would have gladly kept him with him. But Parmentier
preferred to return to his own country, and obtained an appointment
in the pharmacy of the Hotel des Invalides, rising to the post of
chief apothecary there in a few years. A prize offered by the Academy
of Besançon for the best means of averting the calamities of famine
was won by him in 1771, his German experience being utilised in his
advocacy of the cultivation of potatoes. These tubers, though they
had been widely cultivated in France in the sixteenth century, had
gone entirely out of favour, and were at that time only given to
cattle. The people had come to believe that they occasioned leprosy
and various fevers. Parmentier worked with rare perseverance to combat
this prejudice. He cultivated potatoes on an apparently hopeless
piece of land which the Government placed at his disposal, and when
the flowers appeared he made a bouquet of them and presented it to
Louis XVI, who wore the blossoms in his button-hole. His triumph was
complete, for very soon the potato was again cultivated all through
France. The royalist favour that he had enjoyed put him in some danger
during the Revolution; but in the latter days of the Convention, which
had deprived him of his official position and salary, he was employed
to organise the pharmaceutical service of the army. He also invented
a syrup of grapes which he proposed to the Minister of War as a
substitute for sugar during the continental blockade.
The medallions, in the order in which they appear on the façade of
the École de Pharmacie, represent the following French and foreign
pharmacists:--
Antoine Jerome Balard, the discoverer of bromine (born 1802, died
1876), was a native of Montpellier, where he qualified as a pharmacist
and commenced business. As a student he had worked with the salts
deposited from a salt marsh in the neighbourhood, and had been struck
with a coloration which certain tests gave with a solution of sulphate
of soda obtained from the marsh. Pursuing his experiments, he arrived
at the discovery of bromine, the element which formed the link
between chlorine and iodine. This early success won for him a medal
from the Royal Society of London and a professorship of chemistry at
Montpellier, and subsequently raised him to high scientific positions
in Paris. Balard did much more scientific work, among which was the
elaboration of a process for the production of potash salts from salt
marshes. He had worked at this for some twenty years, and had taken
patents for his methods, when the announcement of the discovery of the
potash deposits at Stassfurt effectually destroyed all his hope of
commercial success.
Joseph Bienaimé Caventou (born at St. Omer 1795, died 1877) carried on
for many years an important pharmaceutical business in Paris. His fame
rests on his association with Pelletier in the discovery of quinine in
1820.
Joseph Pelletier (born 1788, died 1842) was the son of a Paris
pharmacist, and was one of the most brilliant workers in pharmacy known
to us. He is best known for his isolation of quinine. Either alone, or
in association with others, he investigated the nature of ipecacuanha,
nux vomica, colchicum, cevadilla, hellebore, pepper, opium, and
other drugs, and a long series of alkaloids is credited to him. He
also contributed valuable researches on cochineal, santal, turmeric,
and other colouring materials. To him and his associate, Caventou,
the Institute awarded the Prix Monthyon of 10,000 francs for their
discovery of quinine, and this was the only reward they obtained for
their cinchona researches, for they took out no patents.
[Illustration: 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.
Albert Seba was an apothecary of Amsterdam, who spent some part of his
early life in the Dutch Indies. He was born in 1668 and died in 1736.
He was particularly noted for a great collection illustrating all the
branches of natural history, finer than any other then known in Europe.
Peter the Great having seen this collection bought it for a large sum
and presented it to the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, where it
is still preserved.
Anxious to pay due honour to the distinguished pharmacists of other
nations, the authorities of the School of Pharmacy introduce the
medallions of Dante and Sir Isaac Newton. The Italian poet’s connection
with pharmacy was the entirely nominal inscription of his name in
the guild of apothecaries of the city of Florence; there are almost
slighter grounds to the right of claiming the English philosopher among
pharmacists, his immediate association with the business having been
that as a schoolboy he lodged at Grantham with an apothecary of the
name of Clark. In his later years he worked with Boyle on ether.
Moses Charas figures between these two. Living between the years 1618
and 1698, Charas attained European celebrity. He was the first French
pharmacist to prepare the famous Theriaca. This he did in the presence
of a number of magistrates and physicians. He also wrote a treatise on
the compound. For nine years he was demonstrator of chemistry at the
King’s Garden at Paris, but he was a Protestant, and the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes in 1685 drove him from France. Charles II received
him cordially in London, and made him a doctor. Afterwards he went to
Holland, and from there the King of Spain sent for him to attend on
him in a serious illness. While at Toledo he got into trouble with
the ecclesiastics in a singular manner. An archbishop of Toledo being
canonised, his successor announced that snakes in that archbishopric
should henceforth lose their venom. This was a special temptation to
Moses Charas. He was strong on vipers. He had made medicine of many
of them, he had written a book about them, and he knew all there was
to know about them. He knew something about archbishops too, which
ought to have prevented him from publicly demonstrating the vanity of
the proclamation. But he must needs show to some influential friends
a local viper he had caught and make it bite two chickens, both of
which died promptly. This demonstration got talked about, and Charas
was prosecuted on a charge of attempting to overthrow an established
belief. He was imprisoned by the Inquisition, but after four months he
abjured Protestantism, and was set free. It must be remembered that he
was 72 years of age. On his return to France Louis XIV received him
kindly, and had him elected to the Academy of Sciences. Charas’s chief
work was a Pharmacopœia, which was in great vogue, and was translated
into all the principal modern languages, even into Chinese.
Nicolas Lemery (born at Rouen, 1645, died 1715), a self-taught chemist
and pharmacist, exercised an enormous influence in science and
medicine. He opened a pharmacy in the Rue Galande, Paris, and there
taught chemistry orally and practically. His course was an immense
success. Fashionable people thronged to his lectures, and students came
from all countries to get the advantage of his teaching. He, too, was a
Protestant, and was struck by the storm of religious animosity. Charles
II had the opportunity of showing him hospitality in London, and seems
to have manifested towards him much friendliness. The University of
Berlin likewise made him tempting proposals, but Lemery could only feel
at home in France. Things seemed quieter and he returned, only to find
in a short time that the condition was worse for Protestants than ever.
The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes prevented him from following
either of his professions, pharmacy or medicine; and for their sake
he adopted the Catholic faith. His “Universal Pharmacopœia” and his
“Dictionary of Simple Drugs” were published after these troubles, and
they are the works by which he won his lasting reputation.
Gilles François Boulduc (1675-1742) was for many years first apothecary
to Louis XIV, and an authority on pharmaceutical matters in his time.
By his essays he helped to popularise Epsom, Glauber’s, and Seignette’s
salts in France.
Antoine Baumé (born at Senlis, 1728, died 1804), the son of an
innkeeper, after an imperfect education in the provinces, got into the
famous establishment of Geoffrey at Paris and made such good use of
his opportunities that he became Professor of Chemistry at the College
of France when he was 25. A practical and extraordinarily industrious
chemist, he wrote much, invented the areometer which bears his name,
founded a factory of sal ammoniac, and bleaching works for silk by a
process which he devised. Baumé did good service, too, in dispelling
many of the traditional superstitions of pharmacy, such as the
complicated formulas and disgusting ingredients which were so common in
his time. He was never content to accept any views on trust.
The three medallions which follow are those of Lavoisier, Berthollet,
and Chaptal; great chemists whose right to be represented cannot
be challenged, but whose works were not specially associated with
pharmacy. These three all lived at the time of the Revolution.
Lavoisier was one of its most distinguished victims, Berthollet became
the companion and adviser of Napoleon in Egypt, and Chaptal was the
chemist commissioned by the Convention to provide gunpowder for
its ragged troops. He became one of Napoleon’s Ministers under the
Consulate.
André Laugier (1770-1832), who comes next, was a relative and pupil of
Fourcroy, and became an Army pharmacist, serving through Bonaparte’s
Egyptian campaign. His works were mostly on mineralogical subjects.
Georges Simon Serullas (1774-1832) was another military pharmacist
who served in the Napoleonic wars. He was, later, chief pharmacist at
the military hospital of Val de Grace, where he devoted much study to
many medicinal chemicals, such as cyanic acid, iodides, bromides, and
chlorides of cyanogen, hydrobromic ether, etc.
Thénard (1777-1857), the eminent chemist, follows. He was very poor
when he asked Vauquelin to receive him as a pupil without pay. He only
secured the benefit he asked for because the chemist’s sister happened
to want a boy at the time to help her in the kitchen. He became a peer
of France in 1832. To him we owe peroxide of hydrogen.
Nicolas J. B. Guibourt (1790-1867), Professor of Materia Medica at
the School of Pharmacy, was author of a well-known “History of Simple
Drugs,” and other works. He is often quoted in “Pharmacographia.”
Achille Valenciennes (1794-1865) was noted as a naturalist, and
especially as a zoologist. He was Cuvier’s most trusted assistant in
the preparation of certain of his works. For many years Valenciennes
was Professor of Zoology at the School of Pharmacy, Paris.
Baron Liebig (1803-1873), was placed in a pharmacy at Heppenheim as a
youth, but remained there only ten months. His chemical works are well
known.
[Illustration: BARON LIEBIG.]
Charles Frederick Gerhardt (1816-1856), born at Strasburg (then a
French city), one of Liebig’s most brilliant pupils, was for some years
Professor of Chemistry at Montpellier in succession to Balard. Later,
he founded a laboratory at Paris, and finally accepted the Chair of
Chemistry at Strasburg. He was one of the founders of modern organic
chemistry, and the originator of the type theory.
Theophile Jules Pelouze (1807-1867) held a position in the
pharmaceutical service of the Salpêtrière Hospital at Paris, when, one
day in the country, he was overtaken by a torrential storm. A carriage
passing, the pedestrian appealed to the driver to take him inside. No
notice was taken of his request, so the indignant young pharmacist
ran after the vehicle and seized the reins. Having stopped the horse,
he delivered a severe lecture to the driver on his lack of courtesy
and humanity. The passenger in the carriage invited him to enter and
share the shelter. This gentleman was M. Gay-Lussac, the most eminent
chemist in Paris at the time. The acquaintance thus curiously commenced
resulted in Pelouze becoming Gay-Lussac’s laboratory assistant. He
ultimately succeeded his employer at the Polytechnic School and, later
still, was promoted to the Chair which Thénard had occupied at the
College of France. Pelouze was a voluminous writer, and did useful
work on the production of native sugar. In conjunction with Liebig he
discovered œnanthic ether.
Sir Humphry Davy served an apprenticeship with a Mr. Borlase, an
apothecary of Penzance, but afterwards exchanged physic for science.
He died at Geneva in 1829 at the age of 51, after a life crowded with
scientific triumphs.
[Illustration: SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.]
Antoine Jussieu was the eldest of the three sons of Laurent Jussieu,
a master in pharmacy at Lyons. Antoine was born in 1686, and began
to collect plants from his childhood. His two brothers, Bernard and
Joseph, followed in his steps, and they, and Bernard’s son, Antoine
Laurent, constitute the famous Jussieu dynasty, from whom we have
received the natural system of botanical classification. The story is a
long and interesting one, but it is outside the scope of these notes.
It must be remarked, however, that to Antoine Jussieu is due the credit
of the introduction of the coffee plant into the western hemisphere.
The island of Martinique was where the first coffee shrub was planted.
Fourcroy, another chemist of the Revolutionary period, comes next and
is followed by
Nicolas Houel (1520-1584), who was the founder of the School of
Pharmacy of Paris. He was an apothecary, and out of the ample fortune
which he had made from his profession, endowed a “House of Christian
Charity.” He stipulated that it was to be a school for young orphans
born of legal marriages, there to be instructed to serve and honour
God, to acquire good literary instruction, and to learn the art of the
apothecary. He also provided that the establishment should furnish
medicines to the sick poor, who did not wish to go to the hospital,
gratuitously. The institution consisted of a chapel, a school, a
complete pharmacy, a garden of simples, and a hospital. The charity
was duly authorised by Henri III and Queen Loise of Lorraine, but this
did not prevent Henri IV taking possession of it in 1596, and using it
as a home for his wounded soldiers. That was the origin of the Hotel
des Invalides. Louis XIII transferred the Invalides to the Château of
Bicêtre, and gave the school to the Sisters of St. Lazare. In 1622,
however, the Parliament of Paris took the matter in hand and restored
the property to the corporation of Apothecaries on condition that they
would carry out the bequest of Houel. In 1777 Louis XVI made it the
College of Pharmacy, and after the Convention the Directory declared
it to be the Free School of Pharmacy. When pharmacy was reorganised in
France during Napoleon’s consulate, the institution became the Paris
School of Pharmacy.
Jan Swammerdam, a famous Dutch anatomist (1637-1680), comes next, and
after him, Claude Bernard, the physiologist (1813-1878), who began
his career in a poor little pharmacy at Lyons. Jean Baptiste Dumas,
born 1800, and living when the medallion was placed, also commenced
his career in a small pharmacy at Alais (Gard), his native town. Dumas
was one of the greatest chemists of the century. The doctrine of
substitution of radicles in chemical compounds was suggested by him. He
died April 11, 1884, at Cannes.