Flix Archimde Pouchet

Vocation

Family

French naturalist and a leading proponent of spontaneous generation of life from non-living materials, and as such an opponent of Louis Pasteur's germ theory. In 1847, Pouchet effectively launched the study of the physiology of cytology. From 1828 he was director of the Rouen Jardin des Plantes. Later, in 1838, he became professor at the School of Medicine at Rouen. His major scientific work Hétérogénie was published in 1859. He also wrote a layperson's encyclopedia The Universe, published in 1870, which gives an overview of the sciences, but in which Pouchet ridicules Louis Pasteur's theories (calling them panspermism) and atomic theory. He died on 6 December 1872, aged 72, in Rouen. He was the father of Georges Pouchet (1833–1894), a professor of comparative anatomy. Link to Wikipedia biography