Ernest Fourneau (4 October 1872 – 5 August 1949) was a French pharmacist who graduated in 1898 for the Paris university specialist in

medicinal chemistry Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry is a scientific discipline at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacy involved with drug design, designing and developing pharmaceutical medication, drugs. Medicinal chemistry involves the identification, ...

and

pharmacology Pharmacology is the science of drugs and medications, including a substance's origin, composition, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, therapeutic use, and toxicology. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur betwee ...

. He played a major role in the discovery of synthetic

local anesthetic A local anesthetic (LA) is a medication that causes absence of all sensation (including pain) in a specific body part without loss of consciousness, providing local anesthesia, as opposed to a general anesthetic, which eliminates all sensati ...

s such as amylocaine, as well as in the synthesis of

suramin Suramin is a medication used to treat African sleeping sickness and river blindness. It is the treatment of choice for sleeping sickness without central nervous system involvement. It is given by injection into a vein. Suramin causes a fai ...

. He authored more than two hundred scholarly works, and has been described as having "helped to establish the fundamental laws of chemotherapy that have saved so many human lives". Fourneau was a pupil of Friedel and Moureu, and studied in the German laboratories of

Ludwig Gattermann Ludwig Gattermann (20 April 1860 – 20 June 1920) was a German chemist who contributed significantly to both organic and inorganic chemistry. Early life Ludwig Gatterman was born on 20 April 1860 in Goslar, an old mining town north of the ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

Hermann Emil Fischer Hermann Emil Louis Fischer (; 9 October 1852 – 15 July 1919) was a German chemist and List of Nobel laureates in Chemistry, 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He discovered the Fischer esterification. He also developed the Fisch ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Richard Willstätter Richard Martin Willstätter FRS(For) HFRSE (, 13 August 1872 – 3 August 1942) was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments, chlorophyll included, won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Life Willstätter wa ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

. He headed the research laboratory of

Poulenc Frères Poulenc Frères (; Poulenc Brothers) was a French chemical, pharmaceutical and photographic supplies company that had its origins in a Paris pharmacy founded in 1827. From 1852 it began to manufacture (or package) photographic chemicals. It took th ...

Ivry-sur-Seine Ivry-sur-Seine () is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Paris's main Asian district, the Quartier Asiatique in the 13th arrondissement, borders the ...

from 1903 to 1911. One of the products was a synthetic local anesthetic that was named Stovaine ( amylocaine). This was a pun on the English translation of "fourneau" as "stove". (The same pun was used in the brand name of the drug acetarsol, Stovarsol.) Other important medicines were

antipyretic An antipyretic (, from ''anti-'' 'against' and ' 'feverish') is a substance that reduces fever. Antipyretics cause the hypothalamus to override a prostaglandin-induced increase in temperature. The body then works to lower the temperature, which r ...

s. In 1910 Fourneau accepted the directorship of the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (, ) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Th ...

medical chemistry Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry is a scientific discipline at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacy involved with designing and developing pharmaceutical drugs. Medicinal chemistry involves the identification, synthesis and developmen ...

section, with the condition that he maintained his ties with Poulenc Frères. He recruited

Germaine Benoit Germaine Benoit (9 October 1901 – April 1983)

to work in the Institute as a new graduate. He was a member of the

Académie Nationale de Médecine Situated at 16 Rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the Académie nationale de médecine (National Academy of Medicine) was created in 1820 by King Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the institu ...

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References

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* * French biochemists French pharmacologists Knights of the Order of Agricultural Merit Officers of the Order of Polonia Restituta Complutense University of Madrid Officers of the Legion of Honour People from Biarritz 1872 births 1949 deaths {{France-chemist-stub