Henri Dutrochet

René Joachim Henri Dutrochet (November 14 1776 - February 4 1847) was a French physician, botanist and physiologist.

Dutrochet was born in Poitou. In 1799 he entered the military marine at Rochefort, but soon left it to join the Vendean army. In 1802 he began the study of medicine at Paris; and he was subsequently appointed chief physician to the hospital at Burgos. After an attack of typhus he returned in 1809 to France, where he devoted himself to the study of the natural sciences. His scientific publications were numerous, and covered a wide field, but his most noteworthy work was embryological. His Recherches sur l'accroissement et la reproduction des végétaux, published in the Mémoires du museum d'histoire naturelle for 1821, procured him in that year the French Academys prize for experimental physiology. In 1837 appeared his Mémoires pour servir a l'histoire anatomique et physiologique des végétaux et des animaux, a collection of all his more important biological papers.

He investigated and described osmosis, respiration, embryology, and the effect of light on plants. He has been given credit for discovering Cell biology and cells in plants and the actual discovery of the process of osmosis.

He died in Paris.

The Mauritian plant genus Trochetia was named in his honour.