Alexander Marcet (1770-1822), physician and animal chemist.

ALEXANDER John Gaspard Marcet1 was born in Geneva in the year 1770. His father, who was a merchant of Huguenot descent,2 wished him to follow the family business, but the young Alexander had no liking for commerce. Instead he decided to train for a career in the law, but before he could complete his studies he became involved in the disturbed political situation which arose in Geneva after the French Revolution.3 This resulted in his imprisonment, along with his boyhood friend Charles Gaspard de la Rive.4After the death of Robespierre in 1794 the two friends were at length successful in obtaining a special dispensation by which they were released from prison but were banished from Switzerland for five years. They then came to Edinburgh, where they took up the study of medicine, both gaining the M.D. on the same day in 1797. There was a strong chemical tradition in the University of Edinburgh at this time, deriving from the earlier influence of men like William Cullen. Joseph Black was in the chair of medicine and chemistry and the university was also served by Daniel Rutherford, from whom Marcet received instruction. The interest which Marcet was later to show in chemistry became apparent in that he chose to write his doctoral thesis on diabetes,5 about which several plausible chemical theories were currently under discussion in the university. Immediately after qualifying in 1797, Marcet moved to London where he was first of all assistant physician to the Public Dispensary in Cary Street. Two years later, in January 1799, he became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and was appointed physician to the City Dispensary at Finsbury. In the same year he married Jane Hallimand,6 daughter of a wealthy Swiss merchant who lived in London; their son Franqois was to become a distinguished physicist. So content was Marcet with his life in England that he took out naturalization papers in 1800 and for the next twenty years lived the life of a well-to-do London doctor. It was natural that Marcet should wish to do all he could to help those who were 1 Unsigned obituaries; Lond. med. phys. J., 1823, 49, 85; Quart. J. for. Med. Surg., 1823, 5, 314; Med.-chir. Rev., 1822-3, 3, 698; A. Garrod, Guy's Hosp. Rep. (iv), 1925, 5, 373-89; Dictionary of National Biography, 36, 122; W. Munk, The Roll of the Royal College ofPhysicians ofLondon, 3 vols., London, 1878, vol. 2, p. 466. 'La France Protestante. ed. Eugene and tmile Haag, 10 vols, Paris, 1846-59 (Repr. Geneva, 1966), vol. 7, pp. 217-19; Biographie Ginerale, Paris, 1863, vol. 33, p. 463. ' Geneva passed through a period of 'Terror' similar to that in Paris, though less violent. During this time anyone who had spoken against the ruling party or had served in the National Militia was liable to be in trouble. Marcet had done both. ' C. G. de la Rive (1770-1834), M.D. Edin., 1797, practised in London 1797-99, then returned to Geneva where he spent his life in the university. J. C. Poggendorf, Biographisch-Literarisches Handwurterbuch zur Geschichte der Exacten Wissenschaften, Leipzig, 1863, Bd. 2, p. 658. ' A copy of Marcet's thesis 'De Diabete', Edinburgh, 1797, is to be found in the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine, London, where there is also a convenient collection of his papers (18051822). The thesis was a compilation from other sources, showing no evidence of clinical experience. ' Who, as Mrs. Marcet, became well known for her popular educational books. It is interesting to compare the lengths of the notices to Alexander and to his wife in Dictionary of National Biography, 36, 122-3; see also Armstrong, J. chem. Educ., 1938, 15, 53.