Ernest Fourneau (4 October 1872 – 5 August 1949) was a French pharmacist graduated in Pharmacy 1898 for the Paris university specialist in medicinal chemical and pharmacology who played a major role in the discovery of synthetic

local anesthetic A local anesthetic (LA) is a medication that causes absence of pain sensation. In the context of surgery, a local anesthetic creates an absence of pain in a specific location of the body without a loss of consciousness, as opposed to a general an ...

s, as well as in the synthesis of

suramin Suramin is a medication used to treat African sleeping sickness and river blindness. It is the treatment of choice for sleeping sickness without central nervous system involvement. It is given by injection into a vein. Suramin causes a fair ...

. He authored more than two hundred scholarly works, and has been described as having "helped to establish the fundamental laws of chemotherapy that have saved so many human lives". Fourneau was a pupil of Friedel and Moureu, and studied in the German laboratories of

Ludwig Gattermann Ludwig Gattermann (20 April 1860 – 20 June 1920) was a German chemist who contributed significantly to both organic and inorganic chemistry. Early life Ludwig Gatterman was born on 20 April 1860 in Goslar, an old mining town north of the ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Hermann Emil Fischer Hermann Emil Louis Fischer (; 9 October 1852 – 15 July 1919) was a German chemist and 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He discovered the Fischer esterification. He also developed the Fischer projection, a symbolic way of dra ...

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

and

Richard Willstätter Richard Martin Willstätter FRS(For) HFRSE (, 13 August 1872 – 3 August 1942) was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments, chlorophyll included, won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Willstätter invented ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. He headed the research laboratory of

Poulenc Frères Poulenc Frères (Poulenc Brothers) was a French chemical, pharmaceutical and photographic supplies company that had its origins in a Paris pharmacy founded in 1827. From 1852 it began to manufacture (or package) photographic chemicals. It took the ...

Ivry-sur-Seine Ivry-sur-Seine () is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Paris's main Asian district, the Quartier Asiatique in the 13th arrondissement, borders the ...

from 1903 to 1911. One of the products was a synthetic local anesthetic that was named Stovaine (

amylocaine Amylocaine was the first synthetic local anesthetic. It was synthesized and patented under the name Stovaine by Ernest Fourneau at the Pasteur Institute in 1903. It was used mostly in spinal anesthesia.Debue-Barazer, Christine (2007)"Les Implica ...

). This was a pun on the English translation of "fourneau" as "stove". (The same pun was used in the brand name of the drug

acetarsol Acetarsol (or acetarsone) is an anti-infective drug. It was first discovered in 1921 at Pasteur Institute by Ernest Fourneau, and sold under the brand name Stovarsol. It has been given in the form of suppositories. Acetarsol can be used to mak ...

, Stovarsol.) Other important medicines were

antipyretic An antipyretic (, from ''anti-'' 'against' and ' 'feverish') is a substance that reduces fever. Antipyretics cause the hypothalamus to override a prostaglandin-induced increase in temperature. The body then works to lower the temperature, which r ...

s. In 1910 Fourneau accepted the directorship of the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (french: Institut Pasteur) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines f ...

's medical chemistry section, with the condition that he maintained his ties with Poulenc Frères. He recruited

Germaine Benoit Germaine Benoit (9 October 1901 – April 1983)

to work in the Institute as a new graduate. He was a member of the

Académie Nationale de Médecine Situated at 16 Rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the Académie nationale de médecine (National Academy of Medicine) was created in 1820 by King Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal Baron Antoine Portal (January ...

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References

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* * French biochemists French pharmacologists Knights of the Order of Agricultural Merit Officers of the Order of Polonia Restituta Complutense University of Madrid Officiers of the Légion d'honneur People from Biarritz 1872 births 1949 deaths {{France-chemist-stub