Louis Matruchot

Background

Louis Matruchot was born on January 14, 1863, in Verrey-sous-salmaise, Bourgogne, France.

Education

Louis Matruchot studied in Evreux then in Paris. He entered the École normale supérieure in 1885. He received his natural science degree in 1889. He received his doctorate in 1892.

Career

Since 1883 and up to 1888 Louis Matruchot worked as an assistant teacher at Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris. In 1902 he was named a lecturer in botany at the Sorbonne, where he also held a professorship in mycology. He was a member of the Société Biologique and of the Société Mycologique; as president of the latter, he presented an honorary membership to George Safford Torrey of Harvard. His doctoral thesis, on the Mucedinaceae, was published in 1892.

Matruchot applied Pasteur’s techniques to the study of the effects of various culture media upon the polymorphism and reproduction of fungi. He was thereby able to demonstrate the facultative parasitism of Melanosporum parasitica; he also found three different forms of Bulgaria sarcoides - having solitary, coalescent, and sterile mycelia, respectively - and discovered the relationship between Cladobotryum ternatum and Graphium penicilloides. Having identified the perfect stage of Gilocadium, he was able to place it among the Perisporaceae; he identified Cunninghamella africana through the use of Pitocephalus, a parasite of the Mucoraceae family, as a biological indicator. Matruchot also showed symbiotic association between Gliocephalis hyalina and a bacterium and developed a cytological technique by which a Mortierella was inoculated with such pigmented organisms as Bacillus violaceus or fusaria; he was then able to demonstrate some constituents of the host in the extracted pigment.

Matruchot’s research on fungi pathogenic to men and animals opened a new field of medical investigation. He showed that certain infections that had previously been treated as lymphatic tuberculosis or syphilis were in fact fungal in nature. He found the yeast state of Sporotrichum gougeroti in an infected leg muscle; discovered the fungus that caused subcutaneous nodules in a forearm (naming it Mastigocladium blochii); described a Trichophyton that is pathogenic in horses and that resembles Gymnoascaceae in its conidia, although it mimics Ctenomyces in its perfect stage; and finally discovered Microbacillus synovialis to be the cause of a condition similar to acute arthritis.

Matruchot also obtained the conidial stage of Cryptococcus farcimonosus in a medium containing sugar, which he kept at 25° C., and he was first to make pure cultures of Phytospora infestans, the agent of potato blight, for which he was awarded the Prix Bordin in 1911. He developed new techniques for the cultivation of mushrooms and truffles and was honored by the Academy of Agriculture for having discovered the cause of the pollution of the Étang des Suisses in the park of Versailles.

In addition to his work as a mycologist, Matruchot wrote outlines in chemistry and physics for the use of his students and contributed to archaeological research in his native province, the Côte-d’Or.

Achievements

• Louis Matruchot was an important personality in the history of French mycology. For his scientific achievements, he was awarded the Prix Bordin in 1911. He was a Knight of the Legion of Honour. Matruchot was a member of the Société mycologique de France and the Société botanique de France.

Works

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  • Sur une structure particuliere du protoplasma chez une Mucorinee, et sur une propriete generale des pigments bacteriens et fongiques 1899
  • Cours élémentaire de botanique 1912
  • Recherches Sur Le Développement De Quelques Mucédinées 1892
  • Étude historique et étymologique des noms de lieux habités du département de la Côte-d'Or 1908

Membership

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  Mycological Society of France , France

• 

  Botanical Society of France , France

Connections

There is no information on whether Louis Matruchot was ever married or had any children.

Acquaintance:

George Safford Torrey

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography: Volumes 9 & 10
  1980