Louis Figuier

Who was Louis Figuier?

Louis Figuier was a French scientist and writer. He was the nephew of Pierre-Oscar Figuier and became Professor of chemistry at L'Ecole de pharmacie of Montpellier. He became Doctor of Medicine, agrégé of pharmacology, chemistry and physics and gained his PhD in. Figuier was appointed professor at L'Ecole de Pharmacie of Paris after leaving Montpellier. In his research he found himself opposed to Claude Bernard; as a result of this conflict, he abandoned his research to devote himself to popular science. He edited and published a yearbook from 1857 to 1894 — L'Année scientifique et industrielle — in which he compiled an inventory of the scientific discoveries of the year. He was the author of numerous successful works: Les Grandes inventions anciennes et modernes, Le Savant du foyer, La Terre avant le déluge illustrated by Édouard Riou, La Terre et les mers, Les Merveilles de la science.

Influenced by Charles Lyell's Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man of 1863, the 1867 second edition of La Terre avant le déluge abandoned the Garden of Eden shown in the first edition, and included dramatic illustrations of savage men and women wearing animal skins and wielding stone axes.