Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau

Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau
Engraving of Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau by François-Hubert Drouais. He is shown working on his Éléments d’architecture navale , his most famous work. On the shelf behind him, one can see a copy of his Traité des forêts.
Born	20 July 1700(1700-07-20) Paris
Died	13 August 1782(1782-08-13) (aged 82) Paris
Nationality	French
Fields	Botany

Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (20 July 1700, Paris - 13 August 1782, Paris), was a French physician, naval engineer and botanist. As a botanist his standard abbreviation is Duhamel^[1]. Elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1738, he served three times as its president, and left an important body of scientific work in such diverse fields as the construction and service of ships, fishing, the cultivation and storage of wheat, and silviculture. Named Inspector-General of the Marine in 1739, in 1741 he created a school of Marine science which in 1765 became the Ecole des Ingénieurs-Constructeurs, the forerunner of the modern Ecole du Génie Maritime. Following the work of Réaumur, in 1757 he released the Description des Arts et Métiers and opposed the writers of the Encyclopédie. His fondness for concrete problems, experimentation and popularization made him one of the forerunners of modern agronomy and silviculture.

Early life

Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau was born in Paris in 1700, the son of Alexandre Duhamel, lord of Denainvilliers.

Career

Having been requested by the French Academy of Sciences to investigate a disease which was destroying the saffron plant in Gâtinais, he discovered the cause in a parasitical fungus which attached itself to the roots. This achievement gained him admission to the French Academy of Sciences in 1738. From then on until his death he busied himself chiefly with making experiments in plant physiology.

Having learned from Sir Hans Sloane that madder possesses the property of giving colour to the bones, he fed animals successively on food mixed and unmixed with madder; and he found that their bones in general exhibited concentric strata of red and white, while the softer parts showed in the meantime signs of having been progressively extended. From a number of experiments he was led to believe himself able to explain the growth of bones, and to demonstrate a parallel between the manner of their growth and that of trees. Along with the naturalist Buffon, he made numerous experiments on the growth and strength of wood, and experimented also on the growth of the mistletoe, on layer planting, on smut in corn, and others. He was probably the first, in 1736, to distinguish clearly between the alkalis, potash and soda.

From the year 1740 on he made meteorological observations, and kept records of the influence of the weather on agricultural production. For many years he was inspector-general of the marine, and applied his scientific experience to the improvement of naval construction.

He was involved in the foundation of the "Académie de marine de Brest", on 31 July 1752.

In his additions to l’Art de l’Epinglier (The Art of the Pin-Maker, 1761), Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau wrote about the "division of labour":

There is nobody who is not surprised of the small price of pins; but we shall be even more surprised, when we know how many different operations, most of them very delicate, are mandatory to make a good pin. We are going to go through these operations in a few words to stimulate the curiosity to know their detail; this enumeration will supply as many articles which will make the division of this labour. [...] The first operation is to have brass go through the drawing plate to calibrate it. [...]

This text is believed to have inspired Adam Smith for his famous work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations published in 1776.

In 1767, du Monceau was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

He died in Paris on 13 August 1782.

Books

His works are nearly ninety in number and include many technical handbooks. The principal are:

• Traité des arbres et arbustes qui se cultivent en France (1755),
• Éléments de l'architecture navale, ou Traité pratique de la construction des vaisseaux (1752 and 1758),
• Traité géneral des pêches,
• Éléments d'agriculture,
• La Physique des arbres (1758),
• Traité des semis et plantations des arbres et de leur culture (1760),
• Histoire d'un insecte qui devore les grains de l'Angoumois (with Mathieu Tillet, published by H. L. Guérin & L. F. Delatour, Paris, 1762) Facsimile of the book
• Traité de l’exploitation des bois (1764),
• Traité des arbres fruitiers,
  • a copy of which was one of the most expensive books ever sold at auction fetching $4.5 million.^[2]

and

• Traité du transport des bois et de leur conservation (1767).

References

1. ^ The International Plant Names Index Botanist entry
2. ^ http://blog.knowyourmoney.co.uk/index.php/2009/02/the-most-expensive-books-ever-sold/

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Duhamel du Monceau, Henri Louis". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Persondata
Name	Duhamel du Monceau, Henri Louis
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	20 July 1700
Place of birth	Paris
Date of death	13 August 1782
Place of death	Paris