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Revista CENIC. Ciencias Biológicas ISSN: 0253-5688 [email protected] Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas Cuba Wisniak, Jaime GUSTAVE PLANCHON Revista CENIC. Ciencias Biológicas, vol. 46, núm. 3, septiembre-diciembre, 2015, pp. 270 -284 Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba Disponible en: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=181241373006 Cómo citar el artículo Número completo Sistema de Información Científica Más información del artículo Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina, el Caribe, España y Portugal Página de la revista en redalyc.org Proyecto académico sin fines de lucro, desarrollado bajo la iniciativa de acceso abierto Revista CENIC Ciencias Biológicas, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 285-284, septiembre-diciembre, 2015. GUSTAVE PLANCHON Jaime Wisniak Department of Chemical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel 84105 [email protected] Recibido: 15 de febrero de 2015. Aceptado: 16 de marzo de 2015. Palabras clave: botánica, elemi, geobotánica, globularias, jaborandi, farmacia, quinquinas, Strichnos, tufas. Key words: botany, elemi, geobotany, globularias, jaborandi, pharmacy, quinquinas, Strychnos, tufas. RESUMEN. Gustave Planchon (1833-1900), médico, farmacéutico y botánico francés promotor de la enseñanza de farmacia en Francia, realizó investigaciones en zoología, botánica, geobotánica, fitopaleontología, fisiología vegetal, medicamentos, e historia de la farmacia. Sus principales publicaciones se centraron en las globularias, quinquinas, Strychnos, y descripción detallada de la estructura de los diferentes órganos de plantas y árboles. ABSTRACT. Gustave Planchon (1833-1900), French physician, pharmacist, and botanist, promoter of the teaching of pharmacy in France, carried on research in zoology, botany, geobotany, phytopaleontology, plant physiology, drugs, and history of pharmacy. His main publications were related to the globularias, quinquinas, Strychnos, and a detailed description of the structure of the different organs of plants and trees. Life and career1,2 Fig 1: Gustave Planchon (1833-1900). Gustave Planchon (Figure 1) was born on October 19, 1833, in Ganges, Hérault, the son of David Planchon, a modest candle manufacturer, and Marie Coularou (Figure 2). After finishing his basic education he enrolled at the Faculté de Médicine de Montpellier, where for three consecutive years he won the first scholastic place. He graduated in 1859 after successfully defending a thesis about the globularia.3 The following year he was appointed agrégé at the Faculty after wining the competitive aggregation examination with a work about the quinquinas.4 This position opened him the possibility of an academic teaching and research career. In 1860 he was appointed professeur agrégé à la Faculté de médecine de Montpellier and professor of botany by the Faculté des Sciences de l’Académie de Lausanne, he position he kept for two years (1860-1862). After his 270 Revista CENIC Ciencias Biológicas, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 285-284, septiembre-diciembre, 2015. return to France he earned his degrees of docteur-ès-Sciences naturelles [after defending two theses, one about the geological and paleontological characteristics of the tufas of the quaternary period of Montpellier, and the second about the changes in the flora of Montpellier, from the 16th century on],5,6 and of pharmacien de 1ère classe [after defending a thesis about the Kermes vermilio].7 Fig 2. Birth certificate of Gustave Planchon. In the same year he was appointed agrégé at the École Supérieure de Pharmacie de Montpellier. On November 6, 1862, he married Eugénie Victorine Eglé Leenhardt (1837-1890), the daughter of Marc Antoine Eugène Leenhardt (1796-1868) and Marguerite Emilie Dessale (1800-1862). They had one son, Eugène Edouard Planchon (1863-1931). In 1866 he was appointed to the chair of natural history of medicines, replacing Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste-Gaston Guibourt (1790-1867) 271 Revista CENIC Ciencias Biológicas, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 285-284, septiembre-diciembre, 2015. who had just retired. In 1866 he was appointed director of the Ecole supérieure de pharmacie of Paris, a position he occupied until his death in Montpellier on April 13, 1900.1,2 Planchon’s research activities were mostly in the areas botany and its history, plant physiology, the structure of medicinal plants, pharmacology, and phytopaleontology. In 1876 he published a revised edition of Guibourt’ famous treatise Histoire naturelle des drogues simples8, which he enriched with the results of his thesis about the quinquinas.9 Honors and awards Planchon received many awards and honors for his contributions to science and technology, among them: Laureate of the Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier for three consecutive years (1854-1856) and of the Institut (1877); recipient of the Hanbury Gold Medal (1888); member of the Société de Botanique et d’Horticulture de l’Hérault (1862), member of the Société de Pharmacie de Paris (1868), twice its president (1875, 1900) and general secretary between 1876- 1900, member of the Société Botanique de France (1867), of the Société Philomatique (1869), of the Société des Sciences Naturalles de Cherbourg (1871), of the Société Impériale des Naturalistes of Moscow, of the Royal Society of Botany of London (1897), and of the Institut de Genève; corresponding member of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (1870), of the Société Royale des Sciences Médicales et Naturelles de Bruxelles (1919), and of Société Royale de Médicine de Bruxelles; honorary member of Société de Pharmaciens de Constantine, of the British Society of Pharmacy, of the American Pharmaceutical Association; appointed chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur (1881) (Figure 3), and promoted to officier in 1898, etc. Fig 3. Appointment to the Légion d'Honneur. 272 Revista CENIC Ciencias Biológicas, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 285-284, septiembre-diciembre, 2015. Scientific contribution Planchon wrote over 100 papers, booklets, and books4-7, 9-16 about his research activities in the subjects of zoology, botany, geobotany, phytopaleontology, plant physiology, drugs, the history of pharmacy, etc. Many of his papers were devoted exclusively to a description of the tissue structure of the different organs of a particular group of plants; these will not be discussed here. As customary for all candidates to the Académie des Sciences, Planchon published booklets describing his researches and achievements.17,18 Globulariæ As mentioned above, Planchon’s thesis for obtaining his medical degree was related to the globularias from a botanical and medical viewpoint.3 In the first part, exclusively devoted to the botanical knowledge about the shrub, he wrote that although the botanists of the 16th century already knew almost all of the Globularia species, they designated it under a variety of different names, such as Bellis, Thymelœa, Scabiosa, Alypum, Empetron, and Hippoglossum. Eventually John Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708) reunited all of them under the name Globularia Linn. Planchon, after analyzing the botanical affinities of the genus Globularia, agreed with the opinion of the botanist John Lindley (1799-1865) in placing it in the natural order Selaginaceæ,19 although Lindley had not justified his recommendation. Guibourt had explained that the Globulariæ was a small family formed by the genus Globularia, native to central and southern Europe. One of the better-known species was the globularia turbith (Globularia alypium), a shrub about 60 to 100 cm high, growing in southern France and regarded as a drastic purgative by the physicians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (for this reason it was also named Frutex terrible).8 The second part of Planchon’s thesis was devoted completely to a detailed botanical description of Globularia Alypum and the results of his experiments to determine its true medical properties. Planchon mentioned that in 1819 the French physician Jean-Louis-Auguste Loiseleur- Deslongchamps (1774-1849) had conducted experiments on 24 patients and found that the leaves of the shrub were a mild laxative and not a strong purgative as reported in many sources.20 For some unknown reasons the results of Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, although quoted in many important medical books, went unused and the shrub continued to be considered a dangerous medicine. Planchon could not understand the reason for this situation and decided to conduct a series of additional experiments, first on himself, and then in the Saint-Éloi hospital in Montpellier), under the direction of professor Dupré. The leaves were used to prepare a decoction or an extract, or used in powder form. The results of all these experiments (24 in number) proved unequivocally that the leaves of Globularia Alypum acted as a safe, mild and efficient purgative, without the griping properties of senna, and without leaving behind a tendency to constipate like rhubarb. The best form was a decoction made by boiling 30 g of the leaves in about one glass of water for 10 to 15 minutes. The yellow-brown solution was filtered and sweetened with sugar or with honey. This quantity constituted a dose; it was quite bitter but not nauseous; it usually acted in about two hours, producing on an average four evacuations.3 Tufas of Montpellier In the introduction to his doctoral theses, Planchon explained that although both seemed to have very different titles, in practice they complemented each other, Both addressed the same problem, one explored the state of the Montpellier vegetation before the probable intervention of man, and the other, the modifications, which the flora underwent during a specific historical period.5,6 The first part of the thesis on the calcareous tufas of Montpellier was devoted to the geological description of the nature, extent, and location of the tufas, and a description of the different theories proposed about their formation and period by scientists such as de Philippe Laurent de Joubert (1729-1792), Marcel de Serres (1780-1862), Jean Marie Taupenot (1822-1856), Paul Gervaise de Rouville (1823-1907), etc. For example, de Serres believed that the formation of tufas 273 Revista CENIC Ciencias Biológicas, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 285-284, septiembre-diciembre, 2015.