Bouvart, Michael Philip

, physician and doctor regent of the faculty of Paris, and associate-veteran of the academy of sciences, was born at Chartres Jan. 11, 1717. Many of his ancestors having been physicians, he determined on the same profession, which he practised at Paris with so much success that no physician was more consulted; yet this did not prevent his being jealous of Tronchin, Bordeu, and some others, of whom he spoke very illiberally, but he was a man otherwise of great kindness and benevolence. One anecdote is recorded as characteristic. A banker, who had experienced some heavy losses, was taken ill, and Bouvart, who was called in, suspected that this weighed on his mind, but could not obtain the secret from him. The banker’s wife, however, was more communicative, and told him that her husband had a payment of twenty thousand livres to make very shortly, for which he was unprovided. Bouvart, without making any professions of sorrow or assistance, went immediately home and sent the money to his patient, who recovered surprisingly. Bouvart wrote only two or three small tracts: one a critique on Tronchin’s book, “de colica Pictonum,” 1758, 8vo; a “Consultation sur une naissance tardive,” against the anatomists Petit and Bertin, 1765, 8vo; and a “Memou/e au sujet de l’honoraire des medicines,” 1768, 4to, all written in a keen, controversial style. He was also an opponent of inoculation for the small pox. He introduced the use of the polygala of Virginia in cases of the bite of venomous reptiles, and this was the subject of the only paper he contributed to the academy; but the remedy, although said to be successful in his hands, fell into disrepute. He died Jan. 19, 1787. ¹