Frézier, Amedée François (1682-1773)

Essay d'un traité des bois usuels que produit naturellement L'isle de St. Domingue dans La partie qu'occupe La Colonie francoise par M. Frezier. Le MS m'a ete communiqué par M. Bernard de Jussieu. ?Paris The first 2 leaves comprise the index; the first 2 pages, the introduction; pp 3-65, the text; p. 65v & the following 2 leaves list: (a) plants found in the "Memoire de M. Fauconnier" [probably unpublished] and not referred to in the present text, (b) Frézier's sources, and (c) a list of plants of Saint Domingue cited in J.D. Chevalier [c. 1700-1770], Lettre à De Jean: I. Sur les maladies de St. Domingue. II. Sur les plantes de la même île [&c.], Paris, Durand, 1752, including further plants taken from a manuscript Livre des simples de l'Amerique by André Minguet, 1713, referred to in Chevalier's second letter. Nine loose leaves of notes follow, primarily indexes of plants of Saint Domingue taken from diverse sources. Copy of an attempt by Frézier to correlate material on the economic trees of Saint Domingue. Additional material is appended to each entry from Frézier's original notes and from an unidentified botanist named Fauconnier. Though the MS is primarily concerned with the durability of woods and their suitability for structural use, some plants of medicinal value are described.

c.1755

2 ll., pp.65, 8 ll. (last 6 ll. bl., & part of final leaf removed). 23.5 x 18.5 cm. Original boards.

Purchased 1929

Frézier, a French military engineer of British descent, was first sent by Louis XIV on a mission to Peru and Chile 1712-14 to report on navigation; his account of his visit, first published in Paris in 1716, elicited sharp criticism of plagiarism from the priestscientist Louis Feuillée who had already visited the same area 1707-12, and who published his journal des observations physiques, 2 vols., Paris, in 1714. [See P.23]. Frézier was stationed as chief military engineer in Saint Domingue 1719-25; the present MS, apparently unpublished either by Frézier or by Jussieu, reflects the interest in descriptive and economic botany revealed by his earlier work in S. America. A member of the Académie Royale de la Marine since its first foundation in 1752, Frézier published monographs and papers on a wide variety of topics.

Described in: Robin Price, An Annotated Catalogue of Medical Americana in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1983).