Henri-Alexandre Tessier

Biography

Henri-Alexandre Tessier was wire of a notary without fortune, father of ten children. Very early, the Tessier young person was noticed by Mrs Goislard, lady of the manor of Andonville, a close locality, currently in the Département of Loiret. It obtained in its favor a grant allotted by the archbishop of Paris. Tessier could thus enter to the Parisian college of Montaigu, whose pupils were intended at the ecclesiastical state. Of this fact it took the small collet, and one gave him the title of Abbé, which appears at the head of its works until the Révolution, but it never entered the orders. Its studies were brilliant. At its exit of the college, it devoted to the study natural science, and especially to that of medicine. Studying with the Medical college of Paris, it had as a school-fellow Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836), with whom it bound of a friendship that only death was to break. Jussieu, of a family of famous botanists, introduced it into the Parisian scientific community. Tessier supported in Latin several theses of medicine of which one was translated into English. He was accepted Doctor-regent, (i.e. professor) of the Medical college of Paris. During the formation of the royal Company of Medicine in 1776, it became one of the first members about it.
In 1777, Tessier is sent in the Sologne by the royal Company of Medicine to study there the Ergot of rye and the Ergotisme, disease then very widespread in this province. Work which it publishes following this mission draws the attention to him and make a specialist in the rye pin in it on the subject of which it is devoted to various experiments. Of this fact it enters to the Academy of Science in 1783. Via Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, Tessier is put in relation to the royal entourage, which is worth to him to be appointed director of the royal farm of Rambouillet, where Louis XVI frequently goes. It is devoted to various experiments, mainly on the Ovin S. It introduced there the sheep Mérinos, and works to it for its diffusion in all the kingdom.
Under the Revolution, Tessier loses the direction of the experimental establishment of Rambouillet and becomes army medical officer. He is then named general inspector of the national sheep-folds. Under the first Empire, it is charged to establish several imperial sheep-folds on all the French territory in order to develop the breeding of the merino. Septuagénaire, it withdraws public life to be devoted to the management of its field of Concrete-Bazoches, in Seine-et-Marne.
If it published much during its long existence, Tessier was not less one man of ground, testing without slackening, that it is initially in Rambouillet, in the imperial sheep-folds, and finally in its personal field.
A long time unmarried, Henri-Alexandre Tessier had married at 61 years, in 1802, Miss de Monsure, thirty years its junior, of which it did not have a child. Withdrawn of long years in its briard field of the commune of Concrete-Bazoches, of which it became Maire until his death, Tessier lived until the 96 years age. Deceased in Paris on December 11th, 1837, it was buried with the Concrete-Bazoches cemetery.

Publications

Henri-Alexandre Tessier left many scientific publications, the last written at the 95 years age. The catalog of its works to the National library of France account more than eight pages. Its most known works are the Traité diseases of the grains (Paris, 1783), the Instruction on the animals with wool, and particularly on the race of the merinos (Paris, 1808), the Instruction on the manner of cultivating the Betterave (Paris, 1811). Tessier wrote the majority of the articles of the volume devoted to the Agriculture of the methodical Encyclopédie (in collaboration with Thouin; Paris, Panckoucke, 1793), and of many others in the Dictionary of agriculture and rural economy (Paris, 1787-1816, 6 volumes). Tens of its articles enriched by the reviews such as the Journal by the Scientists, the rural Code , the Manuel of the Mayors , the Bulletin of the Company of encouragement , the Bulletin of the Company of the Medical college , the Mémoires of the royal Company of agriculture and Annals of agriculture .

Sources and bibliography

old and modern universal Biography. Supplement G. Michaud, Paris, 1853.
Good of Woodland (Mr. it), Funeral of Mr. Tessier. Speech of Mr. the Good of Woodland marked… on December 13rd, 1837 .
Menault (Dr. Ernest), Memories of Beauce. Biography of the remarkable men of Angerville: Cassegrain, Strainer, Tessier, Paris, A. Aubry, 1859.
Pariset (Dr. Etienne), Praise of Tessier, read in the annual public meeting of the royal Academy of Medicine of December 17th, 1840 , Paris, J. - B. Baillière, 1840.
Poitou (Christian), " An investigation of 1777 into the rye pin in the Sologne: the Tessier abbot with Ferté-Imbault " , in Bulletin of the Group of Archaeological and Historical Searchs for the Sologne , January-March 2004.

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