Étienne François Geoffroy (13 February 16726 January 1731) was a French

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

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

, best known for his 1718 affinity tables. He first contemplated a career as an

apothecary ''Apothecary'' () is a mostly archaic term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons, and patients. The modern chemist (British English) or pharmacist (British and North Ameri ...

, but then decided to practice medicine. He is sometimes known as ''Geoffroy the Elder''.

Biography

Geoffroy was born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. After studying at

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...

he accompanied

Marshal Tallard Camille d'Hostun de la Baume, duc de Tallard (14 February 1652 – 20 March 1728) was a French noble, diplomat and military commander, who became Marshal of France. Military career Tallard was granted a commission in the French army at the age of ...

on his embassy to London in 1698 and thence travelled to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Returning to Paris he became professor of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi and of

pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links heal ...

and medicine at the Collège Royal, and dean of the faculty of medicine. He died in Paris on 6 January 1731. His brother

Claude Joseph Claude Joseph () is a Haitian politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship from 4 March 2020 to 24 November 2021, and served as acting Prime Minister of Haiti from 14 April 2021 to 20 July 2021, and acting President of Hai ...

, known as Geoffroy the younger, was also a chemist.

Works

His name is best known in connection with his tables of " affinities" (''tables des rapports''), which he presented to the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

in 1718 and 1720. Affinity-table

These were lists, prepared by collating observations on the actions of substances one upon another, showing the varying degrees of affinity exhibited by analogous bodies for different

reagent In chemistry, a reagent ( ) or analytical reagent is a substance or compound added to a system to cause a chemical reaction, or test if one occurs. The terms ''reactant'' and ''reagent'' are often used interchangeably, but reactant specifies a ...

s, and they retained their vogue for the rest of the century, until displaced by the profounder conceptions introduced by CL Berthollet. Another of his papers dealt with the delusions of the

philosopher's stone The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", a ...

, but nevertheless he believed that

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

could be artificially formed in the combustion of vegetable matter. His ''Tractatus de materia medico'', published posthumously in 1741, was long celebrated.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geoffroy, Etienne Francois 1672 births 1731 deaths 18th-century French chemists Academic staff of the Collège de France Members of the French Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society Scientists from Paris 18th-century French physicians 17th-century French chemists

Biography

Works

See also

References