1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dutrochet, René Joachim Henri

DUTROCHET, RENÉ JOACHIM HENRI (1776–1847), French physiologist, was born at Château de Néon (Indre) on the 14th of November 1776, and died at Paris on the 4th of February 1847. In 1799 he entered the military marine at Rochefort, but soon left it to join the Vendean army. In 1802 he began the study of medicine at Paris; and he was subsequently appointed chief physician to the hospital at Burgos. After an attack of typhus he returned in 1809 to France, where he devoted himself to the study of the natural sciences. His scientific publications were numerous, and covered a wide field, but his most noteworthy work was embryological. His “Recherches sur l’accroissement et la reproduction des végétaux,” published in the Mémoires du muséum d’histoire naturelle for 1821, procured him in that year the French Academy’s prize for experimental physiology. In 1837 appeared his Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire anatomique et physiologique des végétaux et des animaux, a collection of all his more important biological papers.