Jules Desneux (20 April 1885 – 4 January 1962) was a French-Belgian

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

, dermatologist, art historian, and

numismatist A numismatist is a specialist, researcher, and/or well-informed collector of numismatics, numismatics/coins ("of coins"; from Late Latin , genitive of ). Numismatists can include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholar-researchers who use coi ...

. He specialized in the study of termites and also took an interest in termitophilic and myrmecophilic beetles, particularly the

Paussinae Ant nest beetles (subfamily Paussinae) or paussines, some members of which are known also as flanged bombardier beetles, are a large subfamily within the ground beetles (Carabidae).The tribes Metriini, Ozaenini, Paussini and Protopaussini are inc ...

. He was among the first to make use of radiology to study the structure of termite nests.

Biography

Desneux was born in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

in a family of French-origin artisans. His father was a cabinet maker and designer. He studied humanities at the Athenee royal d'Ixelles from 1896 and at the age of 17 met

Auguste Lameere Auguste Alfred Lucien Gaston Lameere (12 June 1864 – 6 May 1942) was a Belgian entomologist. He made several collecting expeditions to the Algerian Sahara region. He was born in Ixelles. He was a professor and dean (1906–1907) of the faculty ...

and learned about termites and examined some collections from Africa that resulted in a paper in 1902. In 1903 he joined the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and graduated in medicine in 1910 specializing in dermatology at Paris. He lectured on dermatology at the University from 1911 to 1918 and then worked at the Brussels general hospital. Desneux was a member of the Royal entomological society of Belgium from 1902. Desneux collected coins and in 1930 he described ancient Greek coinage and was a member of the numismatics society, serving as its president from 1955 to 1957 and again from 1958 to 1961. He was especially interested in coins with markings of insect symbols. He was also interested in art investigation and used infra-red photography to examine hidden drawings under the paintings by

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( ; ; – 9 July 1441) was a Flemish people, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Nort ...

. While examining a restoration of ''The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele'' by van Eyck, Desneux noted that certain skin lesions on the lower lip had been painted over. He had diagnosed the condition from a pre-restoration photograph as a plaque keratosique, a potential malignant squamous cell carcinoma for which dermatologist would have prescribed a diagnostic biopsy.

References

External links

Genera Insectorum. Coleoptera Adephaga. Family Paussidae
(1905) by J. Desneux {{DEFAULTSORT:Desneux, Jules 1885 births 1962 deaths French dermatologists Belgian entomologists