FOURCROY, ANTONY FRANCIS DE, a celebrated chemist and physician, born at Paris on the 15th June 1755, was the son of John Michael de Fourcroy, by his marriage with Jane Laugier. His family had been long established in the capital; several of them had been distinguished at the bar, and Fourcroy de Ramcourt was well known as an engineer of considerable talent, and a member of the Academy of Sciences.
His father was an apothecary attached to the household of the Duke of Orleans, and was a great sufferer by the abolition of places of this kind, which was procured by the corporation of apothecaries, some time before the Revolution. Young Fourcroy was sent to the college of Harcourt, but made no progress in his learning there, and underwent great hardships, from the cruelty of an unjust master. He was afterwards obliged to subsist by his labour in copying, and by taking pupils as a writing master. He was, however, fortunate in the patronage and assistance of Vicq d'Azyr, who had been a friend of his father, and under whose auspices he resolved to study physic; obtaining his support in the mean time by giving his assistance to richer persons than himself in their literary labours, and by a few translations, for which he was very ill paid. When he had gone through the regular course of study, he became a candidate for a gratuitous diploma, upon a foundation established by Dr Diest; but he failed of success, from a party quarrel. His own party, however, which was that of Vicq d'Azyr, indemnified him for the loss, by making a collection to discharge the fees, amounting to about L.250; but the highest degree, that of doctor regent, was still refused him; and he was therefore incapable of holding a professorship under the Parisian faculty of physic. He resolved to apply himself to science as the readiest way of acquiring medical reputation; but he seems to have been little known, at any time of his life, as a practical physician. The determination, however, like that of the countryman in the fable, was still a beneficial one; and though he failed of discovering the golden treasure for which he dug, he profited by the increased fertility of the soil, and by the abundant fruits which it bore him.
In natural history he soon distinguished himself as a pupil worthy of Geoffroy, by an entomological publication; and in anatomy, by his description of the tendons and their sheaths, which appears to have procured his admission into the Academy of Sciences in 1785. He stood at first in the capacity of an anatomist, though he was afterwards removed to the section of chemistry. His favourite pursuit, however, from the beginning, was chemistry; and in this he derived considerable assistance from Bucquet, who was then a professor in great esteem; and having once undertaken to deliver a lecture in his place, on occasion of a temporary indisposition of Bucquet, though wholly unprepared, he found himself capable of speaking for two hours with great fluency, to the delight and astonishment of his audience. The reputation of Bucquet was soon transferred to Fourcroy; and he was enabled, by an advantageous marriage, to purchase the apparatus of his predecessor, and to succeed to his lectures.
In 1784, upon the death of Macquer, then professor of chemistry in the Royal Garden, the Count de Buffon found the claims of Fourcroy so strong, that he thought it right to appoint him to the vacant chair, though no less a chemist than Lavoisier was a rival candidate; the competition not being wholly decided either by talent or by depth of learning, but probably, in a great measure, by the reputation in the art of teaching which Fourcroy had already acquired. His success in this new situation was brilliant and universal; and he continued for twenty-five years to absorb the whole attention of a numerous au-
Fourcroy. dience, by his eloquence, and by the perspicuity of his mode of explaining some of the most important novelties that have ever appeared in any age. The science which he taught was then making its most rapid progress. It was then that Bergman and Scheele had introduced into analytical chemistry a precision almost geometrical; that Priestley had discovered the æriform elements of the animal and vegetable world; that Black and Willecke had methodised the phenomena of heat; that Cavendish had discovered the composition of water and of the nitric acid; that Monge had repeated and extended his experiments; and that Lavoisier had reduced the whole of chemistry to a uniform system, which, though founded on a generalization somewhat too hasty, has still been of important service to the science, by concentrating the attention of the philosophic reasoner on various classes of phenomena, which could not so easily have been comprehended in one view, without the aid of some such hypothesis. M. de Fourcroy was particularly happy in his tact of perceiving whether or not all his audience were fully in possession of the ideas he wished to communicate to them, and he was never tired of explaining himself, till he was satisfied that he had said enough. His manner was energetic, and such as an Englishman might perhaps have thought pompous and affected; but we must recollect that there is no fixed standard of propriety in matters of taste, and that, as the common conversation of the French is naturally accompanied with more of emphasis and gesture than our own, it is very possible that, without any greater proportional exaggeration than is introduced in similar cases in Great Britain, an actor, a lecturer, or a preacher, may exhibit what to us would appear a caricature, while it only affects his own countrymen as a natural, though impressive, style of public speaking. The chemical amphitheatre of the Public Garden was crowded by students from all countries, and from all quarters of the globe, some prompted to visit Paris by their own love of learning only, some assisted in their pursuits by their respective governments; and it was twice in succession necessary to provide more extensive accommodations for the overflowing numbers that sought for admittance.
M. de Fourcroy's political life, though not unsuccessful, seems to have contributed less materially to his happiness than his scientific career. He was chosen a supplementary member of the National Convention, and entered on the functions of the office in the dreadful period of 1793. He had, however, the wisdom to refrain from employing the eloquence that he possessed under circumstances so dangerous, and he almost entirely confined his exertions to some attempts to soften the cruel tyranny of the times. Darcet was one of the destined victims that he had the good fortune to save; but he soon found it too dangerous to persist in such interferences. M. Cuvier, however, very fully acquits him of any approbation of the judicial murders which were committed, and of any connivance at such proceedings as it might have been possible for him to avert; declaring, that if, upon the strictest inquiry, he could have discovered that there was the least foundation for charging him with having been indifferent to the fate of his great rival Lavoisier, no consideration on earth could have induced him to become the biographer of a person so odious and contemptible. It was at a later period that Fourcroy acquired some little influence as a director of the public instruction; and in this capacity he had great scope for the exertion of his talents, in the re-establishment of the many public institutions connected with science, which the madness of the Revolution had destroyed. The École de Médecine was one of the first that was restored; but the name of Médecine seeming to carry
with it too much of respect and authority for the levelling spirit of the day, the new institution was at first called École de Santé. M. de Fourcroy was also very essentially concerned in the organization of the École Polytechnique, as well as of the central schools of the departments, and of the Normal schools of Paris; nor was he an indifferent spectator of the establishment of the Institute, which was at first intended to be as much immediately subservient to public instruction, as to making known the results of private study. He had also considerable influence in obtaining the adoption of a law calculated greatly to facilitate the formation of a museum of natural history on a magnificent scale. If, in the pursuit of these objects, he sometimes appeared to forget the dignity of language most appropriate to his subject, it must be remembered that he lived in times when the choice of expressions was by no means at the option of the speaker. He was once denounced by the Jacobins, merely for his silence in the assembly; but he excused himself, by pleading the absolute necessity of applying himself to chemical pursuits for the support of his family.
In 1798 his duties as a senator were terminated; but he was made a counselor of state under the consular government, and again employed in the department of public instruction, with less liberty to pursue his own ideas than before, but with more effectual means of attaining the objects of his appointment. In this capacity he directed, in the course of five years, the establishment of twelve schools of law, and of more than thirty lycées, afterwards called royal colleges, and three hundred elementary schools; exhibiting, in the performance of this laborious duty, the greatest possible judgment and attention in overcoming the local difficulties which perpetually occurred in the details of the undertaking, and depending on none but himself for the whole of the required arrangements. He conducted himself with great impartiality in his choice of the persons to be employed, though he sometimes found himself obliged to pay a certain degree of deference to the arbitrary power under which he acted, or even to his own political connexions. Remembering the difficulties which he had himself encountered in the early part of his career, he was particularly kind and benevolent in his intercourse with those young men to whom he was the dispenser of public munificence, in admitting them to a gratuitous education.
The great number and extent of M. de Fourcroy's scientific labours may be considered as paramount to a more immediate participation in the discovery of some of the new facts which changed the aspect of the science of chemistry. His ideas were, however, often rather enlarged than profound; and he was not uncommonly somewhat too precipitate in his conclusions; but he was generally methodical in the mode of conducting his researches, and clear in relating their results. His pursuits and projects were sometimes varied a little capriciously, though he prosecuted them all with equal warmth and eloquence. He was too much the slave of public opinion for his own comfort; and even the slightest expression of censure that occurred in private society, or the most unimportant criticism that appeared in a periodical work, became a heavy misfortune to him, and deprived him of his tranquillity for a considerable time. But the desire of universal approbation acted upon him as a strong incentive to continued exertion; and, amongst all his political and official labours, he continued his experiments, his memoirs, and his lectures, with as much eagerness as if they had constituted his whole occupation. His nerves seem ultimately to have suffered by his unremitting application, and he became subject to palpitations, which, as he was well aware, rendered the duration of his life extremely preca-
Fourcroy, rious. At last, on the 16th of December 1809, at the age of fifty-four, as he was signing some dispatches, he exclaimed suddenly, "I am dead;" and his words were true. It happened, that on that day his family were about to assemble for the celebration of an anniversary in which they were particularly interested; the assembly actually met, though only to mourn his loss; and their disappointment was rendered the greater, upon the receipt of some distinguished marks of the imperial favour, which arrived too late to be of any use to his spirits or to his health, but which would have been of the more value to him, as he had before been passed over, when some of his colleagues had received considerable gratifications. He had, however, been made a count of the empire, and a commander of the legion of honour, in addition to his various literary and scientific titles; and he must have had the heartfelt satisfaction of reflecting, that he had been of use to the promotion of knowledge by his experiments and his writings; to his country by the public institutions which he had established; and to many deserving individuals by the benefits which he had bestowed on them, without the remorse of having done injury to any one.
He left a son by his first marriage with Mlle. Bettinger, the Count de Fourcroy, an officer of artillery, who was afterwards killed in the campaign of 1813 in Saxony, and a daughter, Mad. Foucaud. By his second marriage with Mad. Belleville, the widow of M. de Wailly, he had no children. His two maiden sisters also survived him, though by no means in a state of affluence; but they received great kindness from his friend and assistant M. Vauquelin. His place at the Institute was very ably filled by M. Thénard; M. Laugier succeeded him at the Museum, and M. Gay Lussac at the Ecole Polytechnique.
The chief of M. de Fourcroy's separate publications are, Essai sur les Maladies des Artisans, 12. Paris, 1777, translated from Rammazzini. Analyse Chimique de l'Eau Sulfureuse d'Enghien, par Fourcroy et Laporte, 8vo, 1778. Leçons Élémentaires d'Histoire Naturelle de Chimie, 2 vols. 8vo, 1782; 5 vols. 8vo, 1789, 1794; translated by Nicholson. Mémoires et Observations de Chimie, 8vo, 1784; intended as a sequel to the elements. Most of these had been read to the academy before the author was a member. They relate to the metallic carbonates, to detonations, to tests for water, to combustions in a stream of oxygen, and to the properties of several saline and metallic substances. An edition of the Entomologia Parisiensis of Geoffroy, 2 vols. 12mo, 1780; extracted from Geoffroy's larger work, with the addition of 250 new species. L'Art de connaître et d'employer les Médicaments dans les Maladies, 2 vols. 8vo, 1785. Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique, par de Beauveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, et De Fourcroy, 8vo, 1787. Essai sur le Phlogistique et les Acides, 8vo, 1788; from the English of Kirwan. La Médecine éclairée par les Sciences Physiques, 4 vols. 8vo, 1791, 1792; a collection of papers, with some original essays. Philosophie Chimique, ou Vérités Fondamentales de la Chimie Moderne, 1792, 1796, 1800. Reviewed by Deyeux, Ann. de Chim. lvi.; a work which has been translated into almost every European language, including modern Greek. Procédés pour extraire la Soude du Sel Marin, 4to, 1795. Système de Connaissances Chimiques, 10 vols. 8vo, 5 vols. 4to, 1800. Rev. Ann. Ch. xxxvi. xxxvii. Translated by Nicholson. Tableaux Synoptiques de Chimie, fol. 1800, 1805. Abrége de Chimie, pour l'usage des écoles vétérinaires. Chimie pour les Dames, in the Bibliothèque des Dames.
Besides his separate works, Fourcroy was the author of more than 160 memoirs, printed in different publications, the principal of which it will be sufficient to enumerate in a very cursory manner. The most important of his later researches were published jointly in his own name and in that of his pupil Vauquelin; and it is supposed that the processes were generally conducted and often suggested by Vauquelin, but that the investigations were set on foot and directed, and the results described and methodized, with inferences and theoretical reasoning, by Fourcroy.
In the Mémoires of the Academy of Sciences we find an Anatomical History of the Tendons and their Muscular Capsules, 1785, 1786, 1787. On the Smoking Oil of Vitriol of Saxony, and the Concrete Salt obtained from it, 1785; modifications of the sulphurous acid. On Hepatic Gas, 1786. Report on a Sand from Pers containing Copper. On Azote, and its production in animals, 1787. On detecting Lead in Wines, 1787. On Combustions in the Oxyacetic Acid, 1788. On Metals precipitated by Ammonia, 1788. Experiments
on Animal Substances, made at the Lyceum, 1789. On a Lixiv Fourcroy, changed by putrefaction, 1789. On the Colours derived by Vegetables from Oxygen, 1789. On an Ore of Lead from Rozières, 1789. On the Sulphate of Mercury, and on Triple Ammoniacal Salts, 1790. On the Formation of the Nitric Acid by the Action of the Oxyd of Mercury on Ammonia, 1790. On the Combustion of Hydrogen in close vessels, by Fourcroy, Vauquelin, and Séguin, 1790. On Barita and Strontia, Mém. Inst. vol. ii. 1797. On Phosphate of Lime and on Phosphorus, ib. On the Urinary Secretion in Horses and in the Human Subject, ib. On Urinary Calculi, with two more Mémoires on the Secretion, iv. 1803. On the Nitrous Oxyd, by Fourcroy, Vauquelin, and Thénard, vi. 1805. On Cow's Milk, ib. On Guano, used as a Manure, ib. On Tabashee, ib. On the Chemical Nature of Curious Wheat, ib. On a Detonating Substance obtained from Indigo, ib. On Animal Substances treated by Nitric Acid, ib. Two Mémoires on Crude Plaster and a new Metal found with it. On the effects of Germination and Fermentation on Corn and Pulse, vii. 1801. In the Mémoires of the Royal Society of Medicine for 1782-83-84, Par. 1787, we find a valuable memoir On the Muriate of Lime, p. 267. On Morbid Changes in some of the Animal Fluids, p. 488. On the Nature of Muscular Fibres, and on the Seat of Irritability; showing the analogy of muscular fibre to the coagulable lymph of the blood.
Many of these earlier papers have also been printed in the Annales de Chimie, but they are sometimes altered, and they are mixed with others which are original. On Azote (20), vol. i. (1789). This memoir exhibits no very favourable specimen of the author's accuracy; for he asserts in it that pure azote turns vegetable blues to green, and that it may be obtained, by means of a low heat, from the oxide of manganese. On the Gas in the Air Vessels of the Corp. On a Morbid Change in the Blood, ib.; exuding from the face. On detecting Lead in Wine (21), ib. On two Ores of Lead, ii. On the action of Oxyds on Ammonia, ib. On the Salts of Magnesia, ib. On a Change in the Liver after Death (23), iii. On Biliary Calculi, ib.; describing the adipocere of these substances. On the Albumen of Vegetables, ib. On the Carbonate of Barita of Alton Moor, iv. On the Medical Properties of Oxygen, ib. On the Triple Salts of Ammonia and Magnesia, ib.; an elaborate and interesting paper. On Combustions in Oxyacetic Acid Gas, ib. On the effect of Oxygen in colouring Vegetables, and on the preparation of Solid Pigments, v. On the Changes observed in the Cemetery of the Innocents, ib. Fourcroy had observed that the muscular parts were often changed into a substance resembling spermaceti. On a Black Sand from St Domingo, vi. On the Water of Enghien, (2), ib. Discoveries in Animal and Vegetable Chemistry, ib. On the Formation of the Nitric Acid from the Action of the Oxyd of Mercury on Ammonia, ib. On the Culture of Clove in the Isle of Bourbon, vii. Experiments on Animal Substances made at the Lyceum in 1790, (24), ib. Second Mémoire on the Substances found in the Cemetery. On the Glandola of St Domingo, viii. x.; On the Combustion of Hydrogen, (30), viii. Report on Loyer's Art de la Verrerie, ix. On Bell Metal, ib. The principal object of this paper is to discover a ready mode of converting the spoils of the churches into copper coin. On Tears and Mucus, x. On the Sulphate of Mercury, and its combination with Ammonia, ib.; On the Refinement of Saltpetre, xi. On the Juice which furnishes Elastic Gum, ib. Note on the Decomposition of the Carbonic Acid Gas, effected by Mr Tennant, xii. On Triple Salts, xiii. On Animal Concretions, from the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique. On the Brain, xvi. Report on some Artificial Pencils, xx. Extract of a Memoir on Hydrocarbonous Gas, and on the supposed Combustion of Azote, xxi. On Detonations by Percussion, ib. Extract of a Memoir of Proust on Odoriferous Substances, ib. On obtaining Pure Barita, ib.; an elegant and effectual process. On the Union of Chemistry with Pharmacy, ib. On Vitality, and on Humboldt's Experiments, xxii. On the Action of the Sulphuric Acid on Vegetable and Animal Substances, xxiii. On the Formation of the Sulphuric Ether, ib. On the Sulphurous Acid, xxiv. Report on some Colours for Porcelain, xxv. Letter to Humboldt on the Chemistry of Life, xxvii. Examination of Dr Pearson's Experiments on Calculi, ib. On Pneumatic Medicine, xxviii. On the Experiments of Mayeu, from the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique, xxix. Newalites from Egypt, ib. On Congelation by Artificial Cold, ib. Letter to Gierst on Calculi, xxx. Notice of Ventenot's Vegetable System, ib. On the Chemical and Medical History of the Urinary Secretion, xxxi. xxxii. His investigations respecting calculi, however, notwithstanding their importance, were in a great measure anticipated by Wollaston, whose paper, however, is not mentioned by M. de Fourcroy. Notice of the Chimie Optométrique, xxxi. Accesses of a Memoir of Fabroni on Fermentation and on Ether, ib. Chemical Newalites, xxxii. Report on Paul's Artificial Waters, xxxiii. On Dalm's Ether, xxxiv. On the Identity of the Three Exprepressivistic Acids with the Acetic, xxxv.; suggesting that they might be substituted for it in some economical processes. Galvanic Experiments, xxxix; by Fourcroy, Vauquelin, and Thénard. Note in Answer to Proust, xlii. Remarks on a Memoir of the Dutch Chemist on the Carbonic Oxide, xliii. On a New Phosphate
Fourier found in the Bones, xlvii.; that of magnesia, not before observed. Extract of a Memoir on Platina, xlviii. Two Memoirs on Crude Platina, and on a Metal found with it, xlix. 1. Extract from Isarn's Manual of Galvanism, l. On the Alumina of Saxony, iii. On a Fluid found in the Coccyx of the Castilega Elastic, iv. On a Deodorizing Substance formed by the Action of the Nitric Acid on Indigo and Animal Matters, iv.; the investigations relating to indigo have since been carried further by Mr Hatchett. On the Products of Animal Substances treated with the Nitric Acid, lvi. On the Guano (39), lvi. Experiments on Ivory, Recent and Fossil, and on the Enamel of the Teeth, in search of the Fluoric Acid, lvii.; these experiments were not completely successful, though the fluoric acid had been detected by Morichini in the teeth before that time, and by Berzelius more recently.
M. de Fourcroy was for some years the editor of the Journal des Pharmaciens; he first suggested the idea of the publication of the Annales du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, and contributed several valuable papers to it, as well as to the Journal de l'Ecole Polytechnique, and to the Magasin Encyclopédique. He was also the author of some very voluminous articles in the chemical part of the Encyclopédie Méthodique; but the fabric of his celebrity is principally founded on the works which have already been enumerated. (Palissot de Beauvois, Éloge Historique, Par. 1810; Cuvier, Éloge, M. Inst. A. Math. 1810, in Biographie Universelle, xv. 8. Par. 1816; Thomson's Annals, i. May 1818, p. 321; Alkin's General Biography, vol. x. 4to, Lond. 1816.)