Species Furcraea foetida

For Antoine François, Comte de Fourcroy (1755–1809), French chemist. Although he obtained a doctor’s diploma in 1780 from the medical school in Paris, Fourcroy pursued a career in chemistry as a result of Professor JBM Bucquet’s (1746–1780) influence. He became a popular lecturer in chemistry at the College of the Jardin du Roi. He worked with Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–1794), the ‘father of chemistry’, and Guyton de Morveau and Claude Berthollet on the Méthode de nomenclature chimique, a work that helped standardise chemical nomenclature. He wrote many scientific memoirs for the Royal Society, a book on systematic entomology and, under Napoleon I, took a leading part in the establishment of schools for both primary and secondary education and scientific studies. In 1801 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (The botanical name was originally misspelled by the author Étienne Pierre Ventenat.)