Background

Charles Frédéric Girard was born on 8 March 1822, at Mülhausen, Upper Alsace.

Education

Girard received his education at Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where he came under the influence of Louis Agassiz, at first as a pupil and then as an assistant.

When Agassiz came to the United States in 1847, he brought Girard with him, and the young man remained at Cambridge with him until the fall of 1850.

Girard completed a medical course at Georgetown College, which gave him the degree of M. D. in 1856.

Career

In 1849, Girard's first scientific paper, “On the Genus Cottus, ” was published in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, and he was soon followed by others along the same line. But his interest was by no means confined to fishes, and during those brief years in Cambridge, he published several important papers on flatworms and one on echinoderms.

In the fall of 1850, when Spencer F. Baird was made the assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, he gave Girard the opportunity to become associated with him in the plans and work which resulted in the establishment of the United States National Museum in 1857.

During the decade before the Civil War, Girard published more than 170 notices, papers, and reports, dealing with a large variety of animals. The catholicity of his taste was most surprising, for while fishes and reptiles became his chief interest, he wrote of quadrupeds, spiders, centipedes, insects, and worms as well.

The decade was notable for explorations in the far west, particularly in connection with the surveys of the Mexican boundary and for a transcontinental railway, and Girard was looked to for reports on the fishes and most of the reptiles collected by the exploring parties.

Some of these reports were made in collaboration with Baird but even in such cases, the work was chiefly Girard’s.

In 1860, he decided to visit Europe and in 1861 was awarded the Cuvier Prize by the Institute of France. While in Paris, the troubles leading to the Civil War in the United States came to a head and Girard found his sympathies on the side of the South.

Having accepted a commission from the Confederacy to supply its army with drugs and surgical instruments he found difficulty in returning to the United States. He finally succeeded in reaching the South and made a tour through Virginia and the Carolinas in the summer of He published at once in Paris an account of this trip, Les États Confédérés d’Amérique visités en 1863.

With the close of the war, finding life in Washington no longer attractive, he returned to Paris and entered upon a career in medicine to which he devoted the next twenty years. In 1870, he was a chief physician to one of the military ambulances during the siege of Paris and as a result, published in 1872 an important paper on the etiology of typhoid fever, L’Ambulance Militaire de la rue Violet, N0. 57.

In 1888, his interest in zoological research reviving, he published two papers on fishes and a bibliography of his own writings. The next three years witnessed the appearance of eight additional papers, the last of which, an important report on North American flatworms, was his final contribution to science.

He was content to live quietly in seclusion at Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris, until he died in 1895.

Achievements

• During the decade before the Civil War, Girard published more than 170 notices, papers, and reports, dealing with a large variety of animals. The catholicity of his taste was most surprising, for while fishes and reptiles became his chief interest, he wrote of quadrupeds, spiders, centipedes, insects, and worms as well. The decade was notable for explorations in the far west, particularly in connection with the surveys of the Mexican boundary and for a transcontinental railway, and Girard was looked to for reports on the fishes and most of the reptiles collected by the exploring parties. Some of these reports were made in collaboration with Baird but even in such cases, the work was chiefly Girard’s.

Works

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  • Bibliographia Americana historico-naturalis, or, Bibliography of American natural history for the year 1851.

    (Title: Bibliographia Americana historico-naturalis, or, B...)

  • Contribution A L'Histoire Medico-Chirurgicale Du Siege De Paris: L'Ambulance Militaire De La Rue Violet, No. 57 (1873) (French Edition)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • La vie au point de vue physique: Ou. Physiogénie philosophique (French Edition)
  • Principes de biologie appliqués à la médicine (French Edition)

Personality

Girard was a man of retiring habits and great industry. During his busy years in Washington, Girard became, in 1854, a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Connections

Girard never married.