François Victor Mérat de Vaumartoise

François Victor Mérat de Vaumartoise (5 July 1780 in Paris – 13 March 1851 in Paris) was a French physician, botanist and mycologist.

In 1803 he obtained his medical doctorate with a thesis on heavy metal poisoning,^[1] afterwards serving as chef de clinique at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris. He was a member of the Académie nationale de médecine, a correspondent member of the Société linnéenne de Lyon (1824–1851)^[2] and a member of the Société nationale et centrale d'agriculture.^[3] He was an Officer of the Légion d'honneur (1847)^[4] and a Chevalier of the Order du Christ de Portugal (1828).^[3]

He expanded the work reported in his doctoral dissertation with additional reports on the effects of heavy metal poisoning in craftsmen.^[5] During his ten years at Charité he treated and cured numerous patients with lead poisoning.^[3]

He was the taxonomic authority of the lichenized fungi genus Lasallia ^[6] and of the botanical genera Corvisartia (family Asteraceae), Lerouxia (family Primulaceae) and Robertia (family Ranunculaceae).^[7] His botanical and medical interest met in his report on the use of pomegranate root to fight tapeworm infections. He received a monetary award from the Academy of Sciences for this work.^[3]

Written works

With Adrien Jacques de Lens, he was co-author of a medical dictionary, titled "Dictionnaire universel de matière médicale et de thérapeutique générale", published in seven volumes from 1829 to 1846. Other written efforts by Mérat de Vaumartoise include:

• Traité de la colique métallique, vulgairement appelée colique des peintres, des plombiers, de Poitou, etc.; avec une description de la colique végétale, et un mémoire sur le tremblement des doreurs sur métaux, (Paris: Méquignon-Marvis, 1812).^[5]
• Nouvelle flore des environs de Paris suivant le système sexuel de Linnée, avec l'indication des vertus des plantes usitées en médecine, des détails sur leur emploi pharmaceutique. Paris : Méquignon-Marvis, 1812.
• Éléments de botanique, à l'usage des personnes qui suivent les cours du Jardin du Roi et de la Faculté de médecine de Paris. Paris : Crochard, 1822.^[2]
• Nouvelle flore des environs de Paris : suivant le système sexuel de Linèe; avec l'indication, des vertus des plantes usitèes en Mèdecine T. 1 La cryptogamie : Paris Mèquignon-Marvis 1836.^[8]
• Revue de la flore parisienne, suivie du texte du « Botanicon parisiense » de Vaillant avec les noms linnéens en regard. Paris : J.-B. Baillière, 1843.^[2]
• Mémoire sur la possibilité de cultiver le Thé en pleine terre et en grande en France. Paris: M^me V^e Bouchard—Huzàrd, 1844.^[9]

Toward the end of his life Dr. Merat published a bibliography of his 213 printed works.^[10] In the introduction he stated: "At the age of seventy and at an advanced stage in my career, I felt I had to print an inventory of my work, to remind myself of the number and nature of my works over the past half-century. Study has been my constant need, I owe it the quiet days of my simple and busy life; it made me forget, on a few occasions, the pains attached to our human nature, and from which my obscurity has not always been able to remove me."

References