Jacques Anselme Dorthès

Jacques Anselme Dorthès, born in Vauvert (Gard) on 19 July 1759 and died during the 1794 campaign of the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees, was a French physician, entomologist and naturalist.^[1][2]

Jacques Anselme Dorthès
Born	(1759-07-19)July 19, 1759 Vauvert, Gard, France
Died	1794(1794-00-00) (aged 34–35) (War of the Pyrenees)
Nationality	French
Alma mater	University of Montpellier
Occupation(s)	Physician, entomologist, naturalist

Biography

Destined to enter the orders, he abandoned the seminary in 1784 and turned to medicine.^[3][4]

He studied at the University of Montpellier where he became a doctor of medicine in 1787. At the same time, he became interested in entomology and botany, particularly with Antoine Gouan.

He participated unsuccessfully in the competition for the medicine professorship of 1789-1790 opened on the death of professors Jean Sabatier and Jean-Charles de Grimaud.^[5]

He died on active service during the campaign of 1794, when he had gone to serve voluntarily as a military doctor in hospitals.^[1]

Works

On December 20, 1787, he read to the Royal Society of Sciences of Montpellier a memoir containing observations on a new genus of insect. The protonym Dorthesia, given to a scale insect, was created in its honour following this first description on the leaves of a euphorbia (Euphorbia charachias) near Nîmes. The species Dorthesia characias was described by Arsène Thiébaut de Berneaud [fr].^[6]

John Obadiah Westwood described the species Dorthesia seychellarum^[7] later called Icerya seychellarum. The name Dorthesia was changed to Dorthezia and then to Orthezia.^[8]

The same year, he joined the Royal Society of Sciences of Montpellier.^[9] He successively published various productions relating to natural history and rural economy:

• Observations of a singular phenomenon, caused by a multitude of black ants (Formica nigra) gathered in the atmosphere, which they obscure like a cloud;
• Research on the pine processionary caterpillar;
• Memories on how to protect chestnut trees from caterpillar damage, on the insects that devour young plants, on those that damage wheat and alfalfa;
• Memory on the clematis (Clematis flammula) with which he proposes to form artificial meadows, to multiply and improve the fodder in his regions;
• Overview of the Mediterranean aggradations in the Lower Languedoc.

In 1788, he won the prize of the Royal Society of Sciences of Montpellier by writing the eulogy of Pierre Richer de Belleval.^[10]

He published a number of entomological articles in the “Mémoires de la Société royale d'agriculture de France” of which he was a corresponding member.^[11]

He was a member of the Linnean Society of London^[12] and he corresponded with James Edward Smith.^[13]

He was also a competent geologist.^[11] We owe him a dissertation on the rolled pebbles of the Rhône composed with the Baron de Servières and dissertations on other stones around Nîmes including variolite.^[12]

References

1. Jean-César Vincens (1802). Topographie de la ville de Nîmes (in French). Veuve-Belle. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
2. Nicolas, Michel (5 August 2016). Histoire littéraire de Nîmes et des localités voisines qui forment actuellement le département du Gard (in French). Paris: BnF collection ebooks. ISBN 9782346019731. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
3. Biographie nouvelle des contemporains, ou dictionnaire historique et raisonné de tous les hommes, qui depuis la révolution française, ont acquis de la célébrité (in French). Libr. hist. 1822. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
4. Antoine-Vincent Arnault (1827). Biographie nouvelle des contemporains (1787-1820) (in French). Vol. 6. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
5. Jacques Anselme Dorthès (1790). Quaestiones medicae duodecim. Thèse de concours--Université de Montpellier (in Latin). Montpellier: Ex typis Josephi-Francisci Tournel. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
6. Société Linnéenne de Paris (1825). Mémoires de la Société linnéenne de Paris (in French). Vol. 3. Paris: Au secrétariat de la Société. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
7. Westwood, J. O. (John Obadiah), 1805-1893. "The Seychelles Dorthesia: founded on the natural habits and corresponding organisation of the different families". Europeana. Retrieved February 25, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
8. William Dwight Whitney (1890). The Century Dictionary. Vol. 15. New York: The Century Co. p. Orthezia, syn. of Dorthezia, named after Dorthes, a French physician (1759–94) (page 4160).
9. "Dorthes, Jacques-Anselme, 1759-1794". numelyo.bm-lyon.fr (in French). Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
10. Jacques Anselme Dorthès (1780). Éloge historique de Pierre Richer de Belleval, instituteur du Jardin Royal de botanique de Montpellier (in French). Montpellier: de l'Imprimerie de Jean Martel aîné. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
11. Nicolas Ordinaire; Abel Poitrineau (1 January 1989). Le Puy-de-Dôme au soir de la Révolution. Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Univ Blaise Pascal. ISBN 978-2-87741-047-2. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
12. Charles Théodore Beauvais de Préau; Antoine-Alexandre Barbier (1829). Biographie universelle classiqu. Dictionnaire historique portatif (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: C. Gosselin. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
13. Pascal Duris (1993). Linné et la France, 1780-1850. Volume 318 de Histoire des idées et critique littéraire (in French). Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-03698-6. Retrieved February 25, 2021.

Bibliography

• Dumas, C.L. (1809). Recueil des bulletins, publiés par la Société libre des sciences et belles-lettres de Montpellier (in French). Montpellier: Veuve Tournel et fils. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
• Saucerotte, Constant (1887). Les Médecins pendant la Révolution (in French). Paris: Perrin. p. 192. Retrieved 25 February 2021.

External links

• Dorthès on IPNI