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| '''[[Félix d'Hérelle]]''' (April 25, 1873 – February 22, 1949) was a French-Canadian scientist, who, with only a high-school education, became one of the most accomplished bacteriologists of his day. d'Hérelle is credited with discovering bacteriophages and inventing phage therapy and modern biological pest control. Subsequently, bacteriophages became the model organisms for the studies that spawned much of our knowledge of molecular genetics.<BR><BR>[[Image:Young d'Hérelle.jpg|thumb|200 px|Félix d'Hérelle]]
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| ==== Early Years ====
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| D'Hérelle was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of French emigrants. His father, 30 years older than his wife, died when Félix was 6 years old. Following his father's death, Félix, his mother and his younger brother Daniel, moved to Paris. From 7 to 17 years of age, d'Hérelle attended school in Paris, including the lycee. In the fall of 1891, d'Hérelle traveled to Bonn where he attended lectures at the University of Bonn "for several months." Thus, d'Hérelle only obtained a high school education and was self-taught in the sciences.
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| Between 16 and 24, d'Hérelle traveled extensively via money given by his mother. When 16 years old, he started to travel through western Europe on bike. When 17, after finishing school, he traveled through South America. Afterwards, he continued his travels through Europe, including Turkey, where he, at 20 years of age, met his wife, Marie Caire.
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| At age 24, now father of a daughter, d'Hérelle and his family moved to Canada. He built a home laboratory and studied microbiology from books and his own experiments. Through the influence of a friend of his late father, he earned a commission from the Canadian government to study the fermentation and distillation of maple syrup to schnapps. His father's friend shrewdly pointed out that Pasteur "made a good beginning by studying fermentations, so it might be interesting to you, too." He also worked as a medic for a geological expedition to Labrador, even though he had no medical degree or real experience. Together with his brother, he invested almost all his money in a chocolate factory, which soon went bankrupt.
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| During this period, d'Hérelle published his first scientific paper, "De la formation du Carbone par les vegetaux" in the May 1901 issue of ''Le Naturaliste Canadien''. The paper is noteworthy for two reasons: it shows an exceptional level of scientific development for a self-taught scientist and reveals a broad level of interest, namely the global balance of carbon in nature. However, the claims of the paper were in error, as d'Hérelle contended that the results of his experiments indicated that carbon was a compound, not an element.
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| ==== Guatemala and Mexico ====
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| With his money almost gone and his second daughter born, d'Hérelle took a contract with the government of Guatemala as a bacteriologist at the General Hospital in Guatemala City. Some of his work included organizing defenses against the dread diseases of the time: malaria and yellow fever. He also studied a local fungal infection of coffee plants, and discovered that acidifying the soil could serve as an effective treatment. As a side job, he was asked to find a way to make whiskey from bananas. Life in the rough and dangerous environment of the country was hard on his family, but d'Hérelle, always adventurer at heart, rather enjoyed working close to "real life", compared to the sterile environments of a "civilized" clinic. He later stated that his scientific path began on this occasion.
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| In 1907, he accepted an offer from the Mexican government to continue his studies on fermentation. He and his family moved to a sisal plantation near Mérida, Yucatán. Disease struck at him and his family, but in 1909.... ''[[Félix d'Hérelle|(read more)]]''
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Napoleon (Napoleon Bonaparte or, after 1804, Napoleon I, Emperor of the French) was a world historic figure and dictator of France from 1799 to 1814. He was the greatest general of his age--perhaps any age, with a sure command of battlefield tactics and campaign strategies, As a civil leader he played a major role in the French Revolution, then ended it when he became dictator in 1799 and Emperor of France in 1804 He modernized the French military, fiscal, political legal and religious systems. He fought an unending series of wars against Britain with a complex, ever-changing coalition of European nations on both sides. Refusing to compromise after his immense defeat in Russia in 1812, he was overwhelmed by a coalition of enemies and abdicated in 1814. In 1815 he returned from exile, took control of France, built a new army, and in 100 days almost succeeded--but was defeated at Waterloo and exiled to a remote island. His image and memory are central to French national identity, but he is despised by the British and Russians and is a controversial figure in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Rise to Power
Once the Revolution had begun, so many of the aristocratic officers turned against the Revolutionary government, or were exiled or executed, that a vacuum of senior leadership resulted. Promotions came very quickly now, and loyalty to the Revolution was as important as technical skill; Napoleon had both. His demerits were overlooked as he was twice reinstated, promoted, and allowed to collect his back pay. Paris knew him as an intellectual soldier deeply involved in politics. His first test of military genius came at Toulon in 1793, where the British had seized this key port. Napoleon, an acting Lieutenant-Colonel, used his artillery to force the British to abandon the city. He was immediately promoted by the Jacobin radicals under Robespierre to brigadier-general, joining the ranks of several brilliant young generals. He played a major role in defending Paris itself from counter-revolutionaries, and became the operational planner for the Army of Italy and planned two successful attacks in April 1794. He married Josephine (Rose de Beauharnais) in 1796, after falling violently in love with the older aristocratic widow.[1]
- ↑ Englund pp 63-73, 91-2, 97-8
