Roussel, Peter

, a French physician, was born at Ax, in the diocese of Painier, and after a course of medical studies, took his degree at Montpellier, and afterwards practised for some time at Paris. But he became at length averse to practice, and employed his time chiefly in study, which produced a work very highly praised by La Harpe, entitled, “System physique et moral de la Fernm?,” 1777, 12mo. This, however, may not be thought very complimentary to the ladies, as his principal object is to prove that they are to be considered as children, and consequently as having the same vivacity and the same inconstancy, the same fickleness of temper, the same caprices of liking and disliking, &c. La Harpe praises the style and philosophy of this work, which the author intended to have followed up by a “Systeme physique et moral de I’Homme,” but did not live to complete it. He was a man of singular diffidence and mildness of manner, and so much courted obscurity and retirement, that he used to say, that two ages of fame were not worth two days of quiet. He wrote the eloge on Bordeu, which was published in 1772, and afterwards prefixed to the works of that physician, and he contributed some memoirs to the literary journals. He died | Sept. 18, 1802, at Chateaudun, on the Loire, to which he had retired a few months before, on account of bad health.¹