RASPAIL, FRANçOIS-VINCENT

(b. Carpentras, France, 29 January 1794; d. Arcueil, near Paris, France, 7 January 1878)

biology, medicine, politics.

Raspail, who came from a poor family, prepared for the priesthood and thus received a thorough classical education at the seminary in Avignon. He was a brilliant student and an excellent speaker, and in 1811 he was assigned to teach philosophy and theology. He refused to take his religious vows and instead found a modest position at the collège in Carpentras. Having become involved in the political troubles that accompanied the change in regime at the end of the First Empire, Raspail went to Paris. He openly expressed his republican views during the Restoration and played an active role in the secret societies of the day. For a time he studied law but then turned his attention to the natural and physical sciences, supporting himself and his young family by coaching candidates for examinations. In science he was self-taught, a fact that later found expression in bitter priority claims and in incessant attacks against established scientific institutions. As early as 1824 he attracted attention, especially in certain German periodicals, by an investigation into the classification of the Gramineae that he presented to the Academy of Sciences.

After 1830 Raspail published the results of an extensive series of studies covering a broad range of disciplines. Simultaneously he continued his political activities, participating actively in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. Raspail incarnated the citizen struggling against the political power of the State. He constantly asserted his highly independent political views, incurring persecution by the many regimes in France during his life. The resulting innumerable political trials, which led to long prison terms and to exile, increased Raspail’s popularity with the public. Raspail often expressed pride in being the sole master of his works. His scientific publications are always enlivened by a polemical streak and are particularly interesting because of the many autobiographical details they contain, although these intrusions frequently prejudiced the judgment of his contemporaries. In later years Raspail often boasted of having held the pen in one hand and the sword in the other, symbolizing in a vivid manner his dual vocation of politician and scientist.

Raspail held a prominent place in the development of science in the nineteenth century. In organic chemistry he specified the properties of numerous substances, and he wrote pedagogical works that enjoyed a broad success and went through many editions.

Raspail belonged to the group of biologists who prepared the way for the rise of the cell theory. Although it would be too strong to call him the creator of the modern concept of the cell, the definitions and descriptions he gave of the cell are truly remarkable. On the basis of precise observation he described the general characteristics of the plant cell long before Mohl, who was unaware of Raspail’s existence. One of the most original of Raspail’s statements in this regard is the following:

The plant cell, like the animal cell, is a type of laboratory of cellular tissues that organize themselves and develop within its innermost substance; its imperforate walls, to judge from our strongest magnifying instruments, have the property of drawing out by aspiration from the ambiant liquid the elements necessary for this elaboration. They thus have the property of acting as a sorter, of admitting certain substances and preventing the passage of others, and consequently of separating the elements of certain combinations in order to admit only a portion of them.

This functional definition can still serve as the guiding thread through the maze of contemporary cytology. It preceded by several years the formulation of the cell theory by Schwann and Schleiden, who knew Raspail’s work and expressed the deepest contempt for it.

An expert microscopist, Raspail not only set forth theoretical considerations of great importance but also made many significant observations. He was skillful at handling the microscope and constructed a simplified model possessing a high magnification. Scientists now agree that he was one of the founders of cytochemistry. As he himself put it, he brought chemical analysis under the microscope. Raspail applied the iodine-starch color reaction to the cell and its products. He also discovered histochemical reactions specific to protides and glucides, although their importance was not fully recognized until the development of biochemistry. The praise accorded to him by Pearse in his classic treatise on histochemistry has substantially contributed to the recent increase in Raspail’s reputation in the English-speaking countries.

Was Raspail the founder of cellular pathology, as certain of his hagiographers claim? In this field he was, along with other contemporary workers, a precursor of Virchow. Among his statements on this topic is the following: “Since disease originates in the elementary cell, the organization and microscopic functions of which reproduce the general organization exactly and in all its relationships, nothing is more suited to simplifying the work of classification and of systematic division than to take the elementary cell as the basis of division.”

Raspail thus constructed a system of general pathology, which he set forth in his voluminous work on the history of health and illness. In this field too it would be unjust to consider Raspail as merely a theoretician, for he provided valuable new data on the causes of various diseases. For example, he determined the agent of scabies, the itch mite, at a time when medical doctrines, particularly homeopathy, contained exuberant speculations regarding that malady. Raspail is therefore rightly considered one of the founders of modern parasitology.

Although Raspail never acquired a medical degree, he was concerned with the art of healing throughout his life. He established his own pharmacopoeia, which proved to be a success. On several occasions he was prosecuted for practicing medicine illegally; but this did not stop him, especially since his convictions increased his popularity. He gave free consultations in dispensaries that he himself set up, and sought to spread medical and therapeutic knowledge throughout the population. Accordingly, in 1845 Raspail began to publish an annual health manual. This almanac enjoyed a huge success, the last edition appearing in 1945, when its annual printing was still 10,000 copies. After Raspail’s death his son Xavier continued its publication, updating the successive editions with new prefaces. These prefaces, a collection of which appeared in 1916, contained extraordinarily harsh invectives against official medicine in all its forms.

Raspail’s almanacs constituted veritable formularies with practical directions for preparation and application of the medications. Camphor, given in various forms, was the best known; along, with Raspail’s sedative water and liquor it perpetuated his memory. In addition to the almanac Raspail published, when finances allowed, supplementary journals in monthly installments.

Raspail’s social activities went far beyond the limits of applied science and of politics. Having survived prison and exile, he recorded his experiences and reflections in numerous newspaper articles, which he twice collected and published in book form (1839, 1872). Drawing on autobiographical material, he forcefully presented his criticisms and proposals for reform of economics and society. He was particularly concerned with improving the judiciary and the prisons.

In many respects Raspail was representative of the age in which he lived. His projects for reform—some of which were later carried out—allow him to be compared with the first “Utopian” socialists: Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and especially Étienne Cabet, whom he knew personally. Raspail had an advantage over all the others through his scientific and medical experience, which brought him substantial influence with all groups of the population. Daniel Stern, a contemporary witness, wrote in his history of the Revolution of 1848, an event in which Raspail played an important role:

He exerted a very great influence on the population of the faubourgs. His medical knowledge enabled him to… relieve, at any moment, the ills and sufferings that the orators of the clubs were happy to depict and that the ambitious knew how to exploit; but this was an isolated moral activity, secretly envied and opposed by the heads of the parties, and it never made a decisive impact on the revolutionary movement [Histoire de la Révolution de 1848, p. 9].

This judgment accurately evokes Raspail’s dual vocation of political activist and biologist. He enjoyed not only the allegiance of the masses but also the friendship of such literary figures as Sainte-Beuve and Gustave Flaubert. At the same time he was exposed to the hatred of government officials and was the target of vindictiveness of scientists and members of the university community. Of all the polemics he conducted, the most famous is one that opposed him to Orfila, a much honored official scientist, during the sensational trial of Mme Laffarge, an affair not wholly forgotten even today.

Raspail was to a large degree the author of his own legend. After the Revolution of 1830 he refused the Legion of Honor and, in the same period, declined an important position offered him at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. He did. however, have devoted friends and students who were in a position to help him. For example, the fourteenth baron Vilain. president of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, enabled Raspail to live and work in Belgium during his exile under the Second Empire.

Raspail’s popularity was a constant source of support to him in the course of long periods of imprisonment, during which he never lost courage or ceased to write and publish. His wife unfailingly provided him with moral strength. When she died their daughter took her place—a display of familial devotion that in turn evoked further popular admiration. His sons gave him valuable assistance in the publication and illustration of his works, and in his later years Raspail had the satisfaction of witnessing their professional and political success. His youngest son, Xavier, continued to propagate and defend his father’s ideas. Raspail’s effigy was often sketched, engraved, and sculpted from his youth until far into his old age, and his portrait was known by many people for nearly half a century.

Very soon after Raspail’s death enthusiastic scientific articles, written sympathetically, gave deserved recognition to his achievements. During his lifetime a detailed biography was published in Vapereau’s Dictionnaire des contemporains; and in 1886 a biographical dictionary of famous physicians included an article on Raspail even though he was not a medical doctor. As early as 1889 a monument to him was erected in Paris at Place Denfert-Rochereau; at about the same date a marble plaque was placed on a house where Raspail had treated the ill without charge. In 1903 Blanchard, an informed and fervent biographer, made a complete list of Raspail’s scientific works and gave his name to a laboratory room at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris. Since 1913 one of the capital’s most important boulevards has borne Raspail’s name. His name has also been given to streets and squares in many cities and even villages of France.

Raspail’s life is a moving combination of original and fruitful scientific work and reforming, frequently prophetic political activity. Among Frenchmen his is one of the best known of names, and his fame has become worldwide, particularly since the upsurge in interest in the history of science among scientists and historians.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Complete lists of Raspail’s scientific writings are in the works of Blanchard and Weiner (see below).

His most important writings are “Observations et expériences propres à démontrer que les granules… ne sont pas des êtres organisés,” in Mémoires de la Société d’histoire naturelle de Paris, 4 (1828), 347–361; “Premier mémoire sur la structure intime des tissus de nature animale,” in Répertoire générale d’anatomie et de physiologie pathologiques, 4 , no. 2 (1828), 148–161; Essai de chimie microseopique appliquée à la physiologic ... (Paris, 1830); Noureau système de chimie organique (Paris, 1833), 2nd ed., rev., 3 vols. (Paris, 1838); Nouveau système de physiologic végètate et de botanique, 2 vols. and atlas (Paris, 1837); Réforme pénitentiaire. Letter sur les prisons de Paris 2 vols.(paris, 1839); and Mémoire à cansulter à I’appui du pourvoi en cassation de dame Marie Capellle, veuve Laffarge, sur les moyens de nullité que présente l’expertise chimique (Paris, 1840).

Manuel annuaire de la santé on médecine et pharmacie domestique . . .(Paris, 1845), 75th ed., rev. by Xavier Raspail (Paris. 1930), 77th ed. (Paris, 1945); Revue élémentaire de médecine et pharmacie domestiques ..., 2 vols. (Paris, 1847–1849), issued in monthly installments; Revue complémentaire des sciences appliquées à la médecine et pharmacie,à l’agriculture, aux arts et à l’industrie, 6 vols. (Brussels, 1854–1860), issued in monthly installments; Histoire de la santé et de la maladie, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (Paris-Brussels, 1860): Réformes sociales (Paris-Brussels, 1872); and François-Vincent Raspail ou le bon usage de la prison, selected writings with preface and notes by Daniel Ligou (Paris, 1968).

II. Secondary Literature. See Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerzte aller Zeiten und Völker, IV (Leipzig, 1886), 673; R. Blanchard, “Notices biographiques sur François-Vincent Raspail,“in Archives de parasitologies, 8 , no. 1 (1903), 5–87; G. Duveau, Raspail (Paris, 1948);Marc Klein, “Histoire des origines de la théorie cellulaire,“in Actualitiés scientifiques et industrielles, no. 328 (1936), 34 ff., 47; Eugène Jacquot de Mirecourt, Raspail, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1869); A. G. E. Pearse, Histochemistry, Theoretical and Applied, 2nd ed. (London, 1960), 1–12; X. Raspail, Raspail et Pasteur: 30 ans de critique médicale et scientifique, 1884–1914 (Paris, 1916); Marie de Flavigny, comtesse d’Agoult [Daniel Stern], Histoire de la Révolution de 1848, 2nd ed., II (Paris, 1862), 9; G. Vapereau, Dictionnaire des contemporains, 4th ed. (Paris. 1870), 1501–1503, and 6th ed. (1893), 1299; and D. B. Weiner, Raspail, Scientist and Reformer (New York, 1968).

Marc Klein