Victor Antoine Signoret (6 April 1816, Paris – 3 April 1889, Paris) was a French

pharmacologist Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemic ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and entomologist. In 1845 Signoret gained his doctorate in pharmacology at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

. His thesis was entitled ''De l'Arsenic considéré sous ses divers points de vue''. Pharmacology made him a wealthy man and he made many collecting trips mainly in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

but also in

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

. His very important collection is in the

Naturhistorisches Museum The Natural History Museum Vienna (german: Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the most important natural history museums worldwide. The NHM Vienna is one of the largest museum ...

, Vienna, Austria although there is significant material in

La Specola The Museum of Zoology and Natural History, best known as La Specola, is an eclectic natural history museum in Florence, central Italy, located next to the Pitti Palace. The name '' Specola'' means observatory, a reference to the astronomical obser ...

museum in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

. Signoret worked on Hemiptera, and is considered to be one of the first great students of

Coccoidea Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than t ...

( mealybugs and scale insects). He established methods for the preparation of slides for the examination of mealybug morphology. He wrote over 80 papers, including a ''Revision du groupe des Cydnides'' (1881–1884) and he was a Member of the Entomological Society of France, as well as an honour Fellow of the

Entomological Society of London The Royal Entomological Society is devoted to the study of insects. Its aims are to disseminate information about insects and improving communication between entomologists. The society was founded in 1833 as the Entomological Society of Londo ...

References

Sources

*Jean Gouillard (2004). ''Histoire des entomologistes français, 1750-1950''. Édition entièrement revue et augmentée. Boubée (Paris) : 287 p. *Jean Lhoste (1987). ''Les Entomologistes français. 1750-1950''. INRA Éditions : 351 p. *Anthony Musgrave (1932). ''Bibliography of Australian Entomology, 1775-1930, with biographical notes on authors and collectors'', Royal Zoological Society of News South Wales (Sydney) : viii + 380. {{DEFAULTSORT:Signoret, Victor Antoine French entomologists Presidents of the Société entomologique de France 19th-century French physicians Zoologists with author abbreviations Scientists from Paris 1816 births 1889 deaths