Jean-Baptiste-René Pouppé Desportes, the king's physician in Saint-Domingue, was born 322 years ago

Training in Paris

The son of a doctor of medicine, he spent 6 years in Paris studying medicine. Convinced that the study of plants paved the way to healing, he attended courses at the Jardin du Roi, while observing the work of doctors at the Hôtel-Dieu and the Charité. He obtained his doctorate in Reims.

Reforming the hospital in Le Cap

At 28, he was appointed king's physician in Saint-Domingue and arrived in Cap-Français on October 22, 1732. He found medicine there in a sorry state and set about reorganizing it. The hospital, which had only 20 beds, grew to 100 beds. He also required every doctor newly arrived on the island to serve one year at the hospital, and he compiled writings on local diseases and their remedies.

The island's plants

He studied the colony's flora from both a naturalist and an economic and commercial perspective, relying on the notes of Father Le Pers and the surveys of Father Charles Plumier. From 1738, he was a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. He died in Quartier-Morin on February 15, 1748, at the age of 43. His *Histoire des maladies de S. Domingue* was published in Paris in 1770, in 3 volumes.