Michel Sarrazin

Michel Sarrazin, painting by Pierre Mignard

Michel Sarrazin (born September 5, 1659 in Nuits-sous-Beaune , Bourgogne , † September 8, 1734 in Québec , Canada) was a French-Canadian doctor and naturalist .

The doctor

Michel Sarrazin was the son of the civil servant Claude Sarrazin and his wife Madelaine de Bonnefoy. After completing his basic medical training, Sarrazin went to Québec in 1685. He was appointed troop doctor by the governor of New France , Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, and served in the French army in the so-called King William's War . In 1694 he first returned to France. After successfully completing his medical training in Paris , he took his doctoral examination in Reims and in 1697 went back to Québec as the “Royal Doctor”. As the district doctor of the Saint Lawrence Valley and chief doctor of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, he helped the wounded at Queen Anne's War as well as the residents of the city, who repeatedly suffered from epidemics of yellow fever , smallpox and other infectious diseases. In doing so, he exposed himself to great health risks. A medical pioneering achievement was the successful operation and healing of a patient suffering from breast cancer . He was popular with the citizens and his patients and was extremely valued and respected for his expertise. On July 20, 1712, Sarrazin - he was almost 53 himself - married the 20-year-old Marie Anne Ursule Hazeur, daughter of a wealthy businessman. The couple had seven children.

The naturalist

Michel Sarrazin is considered a pioneer of natural history research in Canada. During his three-year study stay in France (1694-1697) he had in Paris the botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort met and was by his own visits to the Jardin des Plantes for Botany been enthusiastic. Upon his return to Québec, he began to explore the landscape, geology, flora and fauna of New France . As a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences , he sent regular reports to Paris. He collected plants on a large scale and sent the herbarium specimens , seeds and live specimens to France. The unknown genera and species were mainly described and classified there by Sébastien Vaillant (1669–1722). This passed some of the material on to his English colleague William Sherard (1659-1728). The botanical remains of Sarrazin are still in the museum collections of Paris and Oxford today. The books on the plants of Canada, written in the 18th century, were based on Sarrazin's research. Sarrazin also provided new knowledge in the zoological field. With surgical precision, he studied the anatomy and physiology of mammals such as beavers , muskrats , marmots , seals , tree prickles, and wolverines .

The genus of pitcher plants Sarracenia is named after him.

Honors

• Joseph Pitton de Tournefort described the carnivorous pitcher plant sent by him from Canada as a new genus with the name Sarracenia in honor of Sarrazin . Carl von Linné later took over this name.
• The Club de Recherches Cliniques du Québec annually awards the Prix ​​Michel-Sarrazin for outstanding achievements in the field of biomedical research.
• In the Zoological Garden of Québec a memorial stone commemorates the naturalist Michel Sarrazin.
• There is a rue Michel-Sarrazin in Montreal

In 1699 Sarrazin was accepted as a corresponding member of the Acafémie royale des sciences .

literature

• Arthur Vallée: Un biologiste canadien, Michel Sarrazin, sa vie, ses travaux et son temps . Quebec 1927.

Web links

• Portrait of M. Sarrazin
• Michel Sarrazin . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Joseph Pitton de Tournefort: Institutiones rei herbariae . Paris, 1700, volume 1, p. 657.
2. ^ Carl von Linné: Critica Botanica Leiden 1737, p. 94.
3. ↑ Carl von Linné: Genera Plantarum . Leiden 1742, p. 224.
4. ↑ crcq.crc.chus.qc.ca
5. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter S. Académie des sciences, accessed on February 25, 2020 (French).