Émile Duclaux was a French microbiologist

Microbiologist

A microbiologist is a scientist who works in the field of microbiology. Microbiologists study organisms called microbes. Microbes can take the form of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protists...

 and chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 who was born in Aurillac

Aurillac

Aurillac is a commune in the Auvergne region in south-central France, capital of the Cantal department.Aurillac's inhabitants are called Aurillacois, and are also Cantaliens or Cantalous in Occitan....

, Cantal

Cantal

Cantal is a department in south-central France. It is named after the Cantal mountain range, a group of extinct, eroded volcanic peaks, which covers much of the department. Residents are known as Cantaliens or Cantalous....

.

He studied at the College of Aurillac, the Lycée Saint-Louis

Lycée Saint-Louis

The lycée Saint-Louis is a higher education establishment located in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, in the Latin Quarter. It is the only public French lycée exclusively dedicated to classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles...

 in Paris and at École Normale Supérieure

École Normale Supérieure

The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...

. In 1862 he was an assistant in the laboratory of Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...

. During his career he taught classes in Tours

Tours

Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...

 (1865), Clermont-Ferrand

Clermont-Ferrand

Clermont-Ferrand is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne region, with a population of 140,700 . Its metropolitan area had 409,558 inhabitants at the 1999 census. It is the prefecture of the Puy-de-Dôme department...

 (1866), Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 (from 1873) and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 (from 1878). In Paris he was a professor of meteorology

Meteorology

Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...

 at the Institute of Agronomy

Agronomy

Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, feed, fiber, and reclamation. Agronomy encompasses work in the areas of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. Agronomy is the application of a combination of sciences like biology,...

. In 1888 he was elected to the Académie des sciences, and in 1894 became a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine

Académie Nationale de Médecine

Académie Nationale de Médecine, or National Academy of Medicine was created in 1820 by king Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the institution was known as the Académie Royale de Médecine...

. For much of his career he was associated with the work of Louis Pasteur.

Duclaux's work was largely in the fields of chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, bacteriology

Bacteriology

Bacteriology is the study of bacteria. This subdivision of microbiology involves the identification, classification, and characterization of bacterial species...

, hygiene

Hygiene

Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...

 and agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

. With Pasteur he collaborated in the study of silkworm diseases, and also took part in experiments to debunk the theory of spontaneous generation

Spontaneous generation

Spontaneous generation or Equivocal generation is an obsolete principle regarding the origin of life from inanimate matter, which held that this process was a commonplace and everyday occurrence, as distinguished from univocal generation, or reproduction from parent...

. In the 1870s he undertook studies of phylloxera

Phylloxera

Grape phylloxera ; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae; commonly just called phylloxera is a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America...

; an aphid-like

Aphid

Aphids, also known as plant lice and in Britain and the Commonwealth as greenflies, blackflies or whiteflies, are small sap sucking insects, and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Aphids are among the most destructive insect pests on cultivated plants in temperate regions...

 pest that plagued grape vineyards. In addition, he performed research on the composition of milk, and conducted studies on beer and wine.

In 1887 he began publication of the Annales de l'Institut Pasteur, with Charles Chamberland

Charles Chamberland

Charles Chamberland was a French microbiologist from Chilly-le-Vignoble in the department of Jura who worked with Louis Pasteur....

, Jacques-Joseph Grancher

Jacques-Joseph Grancher

Jacques-Joseph Grancher was a French pediatrician who was born in Felletin. In 1865 he earned his medical degree, and afterwards was director of a pathological anatomy laboratory in Clamart . From 1885 until his death in 1907 he was director of Hôpital des Enfants Malades in Paris...

, Edmond Nocard

Edmond Nocard

Edmond Isidore Etienne Nocard , was a French veterinarian and microbiologist, born in Provins ....

 and Pierre Paul Émile Roux

Pierre Paul Émile Roux

Pierre Paul Émile Roux FRS was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist who was one of the closest collaborators of Louis Pasteur , a co-founder of the Pasteur Institute and discoverer of the anti-diphtheria serum, the first effective therapy for this disease.Roux got his baccalaureate...

 as members of the first editorial board. After Pasteur's death, Duclaux was director of the Institute from 1895 until 1904, with Roux and Chamberland serving as sub-directors.

Duclaux was a prolific writer, some of his better known publications were "Traité de microbiologie", "L'hygiène sociale", "Ferments et maladies" and "Pasteur, histoire d'un esprit", which was a biography dedicated to Pasteur. Duclaux was also actively involved in French politics and was a vocal supporter of Alfred Dreyfus

Alfred Dreyfus

Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...

, who was unjustly accused of treason.
Duclaux's second wife Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux

Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux

Agnes Mary Frances Robinson, known after her first marriage as Agnes-Marie-François Darmesteter, and after her second as Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux born in Leamington Hastings on February 27, 1857 - dead in Aurillac on February 9, 1944, was an English writer and scholar on many subjects connected...

(maiden name Agnes Mary Frances Robinson) was a well-known author, and his son Jacques Eugène Duclaux was a highly regarded chemist.

External Links

• Biography of Emile Duclaux, Pasteur Brewing