{{Short description, French physician and traveller Granger (c. 1680s in

Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earlies ...

– 1734 near

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...

), 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 traveller, with a major interest in natural history. According to the preface of the only work attributed to him, his real name was Tourtechot, and for reasons not explained he changed it to Granger. Granger or Tourtechot is presumably his surname. Sometimes he is listed as Nicolas Granger, Tourtechot (de) Granger, or N. Granger. In the 1720s he worked as a physician in a Christian hospital in

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

, a position he acquired on account of his friend Jean Pierre Pignon, the French consul in Tunis at that time. Moving back to France in 1728, he accompanied Dignon to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

in 1731, when Pignon was assigned French Consul in Cairo. During his stay in Egypt, Granger travelled up the Nile to

Aswan Aswan (, also ; ar, أسوان, ʾAswān ; cop, Ⲥⲟⲩⲁⲛ ) is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate. Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the ...

, documenting a large number of ancient monuments, as well as a considerable amount of its natural history, including animals, plants and minerals. On his return from Egypt in 1732, Granger received a commission from King

Louis XV of France Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

, to travel around the Middle East and acquire any kind of information that could help advance the knowledge of natural history in general. Leaving France in 1733 he managed to visit

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...

, Egypt again,

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

, Palestine and Syria, but died en route toward

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, two days march from Basra. Granger's account and notes was published in French in 1745, in German 1751 and in English 1773. The flower Grangeria of the family

Chrysobalanaceae Chrysobalanaceae is a family of flowering plants, consisting of trees and shrubs in 27 genera and about 700 species of pantropical distribution with a centre of diversity in the Amazon. Some of the species contain silica in their bodies for ri ...

is named after him.

Works

* ''Relation du voyage fait en Egypte, par le sieur Granger, en l'année 1730. Où l'on voit ce qu'il y a de plus remarquable, particulièrement sur l'histoire naturelle'', Paris, Jacques Vincent, 1745. :*(German trans.) ''Des Herrn Grangers Beschreibung seiner in dem Jahre 1730 durch Egypten gethanen Reise, vorin das merkvurdigste in diesem Lande, insonderheit was die Naturgeschichte betrifft, beschrieben ist''. – published in ''Sammlung aller Reisen'', Gottingen, 1751, Theil III, pp. 307-428 :*(English trans.) ''A Journey through Egypt made in the year 1730, in which there are to be found the most remarkable particulars on Natural History''. Translated from the French by John Reinhold Forster, London, 1773. 1680s births 1734 deaths French travel writers 17th-century French physicians 18th-century French physicians French naturalists French male non-fiction writers 18th-century French male writers 17th-century French male writers