Bucquet, John Baptist Michel

, an eminent French physician, censor royal, doctor-regent and professor of chemistry in the faculty of medicine at Paris, an adjunct of the academy of sciences, and an ordinary associate of the royal medical society, was born at Paris, Feb. 18, 1746. His father intended him for the bar, but his inclination stfbn led him to relinquish that profession for the study of the various sciences connected with medicine, in all which he made great proficiency, and gave lectures on mineralogy and chemistry. His plan and familiar mode of teaching soon procured him numerous pupils, and connecting himself with Lavoisier and other eminent chemists, he instituted a variety of experiments which, while they procured him the notice and honours of his profession, much impaired his health, and at a very early age, he was so debilitated in body and mind, as to require the use of stimulants to excite a momentary vigour; he is even said to have taken one hundred grains of opium in a day. By these means he was enabled to protract his existence until Jan. 24, 1780, when he died completely exhausted, although only in his thirty-fourth year. Except his papers in the literary journals, we know of only one publication of Bucquet’s, “Introduction a Tetude des corps naturels, tirés du regne vegetal,” 1773, 2 vols. 12mo. This was intended for the use of his pupils.²