Marie-Théophile Griffon du Bellay

Marie-Théophile Griffon du Bellay (14 August 1829 – 10 November 1908) was a French physician, naval surgeon, explorer and ethnobotanist.

Life

Marie-Théophile was born at Rochefort, the middle child of the three sons of Joseph Jean Baptiste Alexandre Griffon du Bellay and Marie Elisabeth Claire de Nesmond. His father was one of the last remaining survivors of the infamous wreck of the Medusa (upon which he had served as secretary to the then governor of Senegal Colonel Julien-Désiré Schmaltz) and became a commissioner in the French Navy. Qualifying as a naval surgeon at the age of 20 in 1849, Marie-Théophile served on several French naval vessels between 1850 and 1861, his periods of service interspersed with time ashore in the port town of Rochefort. On the eighth of March 1856, he qualified as Doctor of Medicine, his doctoral thesis at the University of Montpellier being entitled Essai sur le Tétanos ("Essay upon Tetanus"). Surgeon first class of the ship Pionnier, under the command of Paul Augustin Serval, he twice attempted to reach the Ogooué River of Gabon in the year 1862. Stranded and unwell at the river delta, in July of that year, he was forced, in December, to give up his attempt and allow his companion to travel on alone up the valley of the river Remboué (now protected as part of Gabon's Pongara National Park).

From 25 December 1867, he was principal physician aboard the Caravane, a Hospital ship stationed in Gabon. During this time he undertook studies of Tabernanthe iboga and also of Griffonia simplicifolia (the genus Griffonia having been named in his honour by fellow physician and botanist Henri Baillon in 1865), and was among the earliest European physicians to describe sleeping sickness*. He wrote, in addition papers concerning the efficacy of quinine sulphate in his successful treatment of cases of malaria.