Pierre Louis Boiteau was a French botanist, born on 3 December 1911 in Cognac and dying on 1 September 1980 in
Orsay
Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris.
A fortifie ...
,
Essonne
Essonne () is a department in the southern part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes.Lucile Boiteau-Allorge, is also a botanist.
Life
After studying at the School of Horticulture in Versailles, Pierre Boiteau left for Madagascar in 1932 to do his military service there, which ended at the end of 1933. He spent much of his life in Madagascar, but returned to France in the last years of his career. He died of cancer in 1980.
Career in Madagascar
In 1934 he started a herbarium. He was initially in charge of the green spaces of
Antsirabe
Antsirabe () also known as Ville d'eau is the list of cities in Madagascar, third largest city in Madagascar and the capital of the Vakinankaratra region, with a population of 265,018 in 2014.
In Madagascar, Antsirabe is known for its relatively ...
and created the Parc de l'Est there. From September 1935, he had a position at the botanical and zoological park of Tsimbazaza in
Antananarivo
Antananarivo (Malagasy language, Malagasy: ; French language, French: ''Tananarive'', ), also known by its colonial shorthand form Tana (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Madagascar. The administrative area of the city, known ...
. During this time, he learned the Malagasy language and obtained the higher certificate in it in 1937.
In 1936 Dr. Ch. Grimes asked him to accompany him to the leprosarium of Manankavely, on the road to Tamatave, where speaking Malagasy would allow him to come into contact with a traditional practitioner. He identified six plants used in traditional medicine, including '' Centella asiatica''. His clinical studies started in 1937, as the start of research that would end in 1942 with the identification of asiaticoside, and the development of a healing drug, Madecassol with Albert Rakoto Ratsimamanga. The financial benefits allowed the creation of the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research, which still exists though its two co-founders have died.
With Ratsimamanga he wrote many articles, including the ''Elements of Malagasy Pharmacopoeia''. Only the first volume was published, on account of insufficient funds. In 1979 Boiteau published alone a ''Précis of Madagascan materia medica''.
Return to France
Boiteau was adviser and secretary of the
French Union
The French Union () was a political entity created by the French Fourth Republic to replace the old French colonial empire system, colloquially known as the " French Empire" (). It was ''de jure'' the end of the "indigenous" () status of Frenc ...
from 1949 to 1958. Between 1949 and 1952 he was a research associate at the
CNRS
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...
, with Edgar Lederer and
André Lwoff
André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries, as well in Portugal ...
as sponsors. Then he was director of the plant identification laboratory at the ICSN-CNRS in
Gif-sur-Yvette
Gif-sur-Yvette (, "Gif-on- Yvette") is a commune in southwestern Île-de-France, France. It is located in the Vallée de Chevreuse, from the centre of Paris (at Notre-Dame), in the Essonne department on the departmental border with Yvelin ...
, Essonne from 1968 until his death.
Recognition
On 1 September 1982, the Madagascar post office released a stamp with the effigy of Pierre Boiteau.