Émile Bourquelot

Who is Émile Bourquelot?

Émile Bourquelot was a French chemist, and professor of pharmacy at the University of Paris. He was born in Jandun, to a farmer, and was the eldest of three sons. Bourqelot became the Chief Pharmacist at the Laënnec Hospital in 1887, where he established a laboratory to conduct his research into carbohydrate chemistry. Bourquelot and other French pharmacists pioneered the study of plant glycosides, molecules in which a sugar is bound to a non-carbohydrate part. They developed methods to stabilize these compounds in solution, and detect them enzymatically. He died at the age of 70 on January 26, 1921, from pneumonia.