Background
Denis Dodart was born in 1634 in Paris, France. Dodart was the son of Jean Dodart, a notary public who loved literature, and of Marie Dubois, a lawyer’s daughter. The family belonged to the upper middle class.
Dodart studied medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris.
The print of Auricula vrsi dod.
The print of Helleborus niger.
The print of Angelica Acadi.
The chemical laboratory of the Academy, engraving by Sébastien Leclerc, in Memories for Serving the History of Plants , p. 4 , 1761.
Louis XIV visiting the Royal Academy of Sciences, Sébastien Leclerc, 1671, in Memories for Serving the History of Plants , p. 1.
Dissection and observations under the microscope, engraving by Sébastien Leclerc, in Mémoires pour servir aux histoire des animaux , p. 4, 1714.
Dodart became a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1673.
Dodart studied medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris.
The print of Auricula vrsi dod.
The print of Helleborus niger.
The print of Angelica Acadi.
The chemical laboratory of the Academy, engraving by Sébastien Leclerc, in Memories for Serving the History of Plants , p. 4 , 1761.
Louis XIV visiting the Royal Academy of Sciences, Sébastien Leclerc, 1671, in Memories for Serving the History of Plants , p. 1.
Dissection and observations under the microscope, engraving by Sébastien Leclerc, in Mémoires pour servir aux histoire des animaux , p. 4, 1714.
Dodartia genus was named in Dodart's honor.
https://www.amazon.com/Memoires-Servir-LHistoire-Plantes-French/dp/1165689316/?tag=2022091-20
1679
Botanist naturalist physician scientist
Denis Dodart was born in 1634 in Paris, France. Dodart was the son of Jean Dodart, a notary public who loved literature, and of Marie Dubois, a lawyer’s daughter. The family belonged to the upper middle class.
Through his parents’ efforts Dodart received a particularly broad and thorough education. After studying medicine he graduated docteur régent from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris on October 16, 1660.
In 1666 he gained the Doctor of Pharmacy title.
In 1666 Dodart became a professor at the School of Pharmacy in Paris. A well-known practitioner, he was first in the service of the duchess of Longueville and then was physician to the house of Conti.
Dodart had the title, but did not perform the functions of physician-adviser to the king. Louis XIV disliked Dodart’s connections with Port-Royal, but he yielded to Colbert’s appeal that he make Dodart a member of the Academy and to that of Mme de Maintenon that he give Dodart a place at the court (1698) and named him physician at St. Cyr.
In 1676 Dodart published Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire des plantes, a preliminary study and an announcement of a large collective work that never appeared. The Mémoires contains a methodological introduction and a model showing how to conduct botanical research. Because of Dodart’s recommendation of phytochemical analysis, this work marks a new step in botany.
When the Academy of Sciences was reorganized, Dodart was among the first group of titulaires named directly by Louis XIV; on January 28, 1699 he was given the title of pensioner-botanist. He justified this nomination by the publication, in 1700, of studies of the influence of gravitation on development of roots and stems and on the fertilization and reproduction of plants.
Botany was not the only field in which Dodart excelled. In 1678 he presented to the Academy an important memoir by La Salle “on certain details of the natural history of North America, particularly of the Iroquois territory.” He published a good description of ergotism (1676) and several anatomical-pathological and embryological observations; three memoirs on phonation appeared between 1700 and 1707.
Dodart was the first since Aristotle and Galen to present new ideas on the mechanism of phonation. He nursed the idea of writing a history of medicine; but when Daniel Leclerc published one first, he abandoned this project for a history of music. Studies on the human voice and on the nature of tones were to serve as an introduction to this history.
Credit must be given to Dodart for pointing out the fundamental role of the vocal cords in phonation. In opposition to the classic theory, which considered the larynx a type of flute, Dodart stated that “the glottis alone makes the voice and all the tones. No wind instrument can explain its functioning. The entire effect of the glottis on the tones depends on the tension of its lips and its various openings.”
He also performed on himself the “static” (i.e., performed with a balance) experiments of S. Santorio, measuring the changes in weight of his body and in particular the quantity of imperceptible perspiration. He demonstrated that perspiration gradually decreases as one grows older and also noted, for example, how much the strictest Lenten fast may decrease weight and how much time is needed to regain this lost weight. As an advocate of mechanical explanations of vital phenomena, Dodart saw in them a proof of the existence of God. His religious convictions found noble expression in his will (an autograph of which is in the archives of the Academy of Sciences in Paris).
Denis Dodart went down in history as an able scientist who worked with equal success in medicine, botany and literature, and was admired by his contemporaries. He described several new species of plants, and is known for his collaboration with the French engraver Nicolas Robert in several illustrated works including Estampes de Plantes and Mémoires pour servir á l'Histoire des Plantes.
Dodart is also known for his essay about the physical characteristics and qualities of the human voice Mémoire sur les causes de la voix de l'homme, et de ses différens tons.
The nettle species Urtica dodartii was named after him by Linnaeus; Tournefort named the genus Dodartia for him.
Dodart was sympathetic to Jansenism and became a close friend of Jean Hamon, a monk-doctor.
Dodart was an advocate of the theory of encasement or emboîtement of seeds, and he strove tirelessly to apply in botany the embryological ideas of N. Andry and other preformationists.
Most of Dodart’s scientific activity took place within the framework of the Academy of Sciences, of which he became a member in 1673.
Even as a student Dodart so distinguished himself by his learning, his eloquence, and his agreeable nature that Gui Patin, the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and a habitually very severe critic, called him, in a letter to a friend, “one of the wisest and most learned men of this century.”
The Perrault brothers regarded Dodart as a man capable of directing the ambitious Histoire des plantes, a project which the Academy had proposed as one of the goals of its research since its founding.
A pious man, Dodart spent much of his time helping the poor, both medically and financially.
Though most of his writings are about botany and medicine, he was also interested in music. He intended to write a history of music but did not complete it.
Dodart had one son, Claude-Jean-Baptiste (1664-1730), who was chief physician to Louis XV, and one grandson, Denis le Jeune, who was maître des requêtes and intendant.
