Home > Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy
Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy ( June 15, 1755 - December 16, 1809), French chemist, the son of an apothecary in the household of the duke of Orleans, was born at Paris.He took up medical studies by the advice of the anatomist Felix Vicq d'Azyr (1748-1794), and after many difficulties caused by lack of means finally in 1780 obtained his doctor's diploma. His attention was specially turned to chemistry by JBM Bucquet (1746-1780), the professor of chemistry at the Medical School of Paris, and in 1784 he was chosen to succeed PJ Macquer (1718-1784) as lecturer in chemistry at the college of the Jardin du Roi, where his lectures attained great popularity.
He was one of the earliest converts to the views of Lavoisier, which he helped to promulgate by his voluminous writings, but though his name appears on a large number of chemical and also physiological and pathological memoirs, either alone or with others, he was rather a teacher and an organizer than an original investigator. A member of the commitees for public instruction and public safety, and later, under Napoleon, director general of instruction, he took a leading part in the establishment of schools for both primary and secondary education, scientific studies being especially provided for. Fourcroy died at Paris on the 16th of December 1809, the very day on which he had been created a count of the French empire.
By his conduct as a member of the Convention he has been accused of contributing to the death of Lavoisier. Baron CuvierBaron Georges Leopold Chretien Frederic Dagobert Cuvier ( August 23 1769 May 13, 1832) was a French naturalist, He was born at Montbeliard (then Mompelgard in Wurttemberg) under the name of Georg Kuefer, and was the son of a retired officer on half-pay be in his Eloge historique of Fourcroy repels the charge, but he can scarcely be acquitted of time-serving indifference, if indeed active, though secret, participation be not proved against him.
The Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence and was founded in 1660. The Royal Irish Academy, founded in 1782, is also closely affiliated with it. The Royal Society of Edinburgh (founded 1783) is a separate S's Catalogue of Scientific Papers enumerates 59 memoirs by Fourcroy himself, and 58 written jointly by him and others, mostly LN VauquelinLouis Nicolas Vauquelin ( May 16, 1763 November 14, 1829), was a French pharmacist and chemist. He was born at Saint-Andre-d'Hebertot in Normandy, France. His first acquaintance with chemistry was gained as laboratory assistant to an apothecary in Rouen (.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica
Fourcroy, Antoine François, comte de
Fourcroy, Antoine François, comte de
