1877 deaths

Joseph_Bienaimé_Caventou

Joseph Bienaimé Caventou (30 June 1795 – 5 May 1877) was a French pharmacist. He was a professor at the École de Pharmacie (School of Pharmacy) in Paris. He collaborated with Pierre-Joseph Pelletier in a Parisian laboratory located behind an apothecary. He was a pioneer in the use of mild solvents to isolate a number of active ingredients from plants, making a study of alkaloids from vegetables. Among their successes were the isolation of the following compounds:

Quinine sulfate later proved to be an important remedy for the disease malaria. Quinine is the active anti-malarial ingredient in the bark of cinchona tree.Neither of the partners chose to patent their discovery of this compound, releasing it for everybody to use. In 1823 they discovered nitrogen in alkaloid compounds. Other compounds they discovered include colchicine and veratrine.
The crater Caventou on the Moon is named after him.

Louis-Françisque_Lélut

Louis Francisque Lélut (1804–1877) was a French medical doctor and philosopher known for his works Démon de Socrate and L'Amulette de Pascal, where he stated that Socrates and Blaise Pascal were insane.
Born at Gy, a small village in the Haute-Saône department, he was member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and researched mental illnesses and phrenology. His main work was Physiologie de la pensée, published in 1861.
During the Second French Empire he was member of the Legislative Body.

Alfred_Bruyas

Alfred Bruyas (15 August 1821 – 1 January 1877) was an art collector and a personal friend of many important artists of his time, among them Gustave Courbet and Alexandre Cabanel. He donated his collection to the Musée Fabre, in Montpellier.
Born Jacques Louis Bruyas, he was the son of a wealthy banker in Montpellier. His interest in art was clear even at school. In 1840 he studied at the studio of Charles Matet, however he soon recognized the limits of his own talents and shifted his focus to the promotion and collection of contemporary art.
From 1849 to 1854 he spent most of his time in Paris. There he collected work by Louis Hector Allemand, Camille Corot, Thomas Couture, Eugène Delacroix, Narcisse Diaz de Peña, Adrien Guignet, Adolphe Hervier, Prosper Marilhat, Edouard-Antoine Marsal, Jean-François Millet, Théodore Rousseau, Philippe-Joseph Tassaert, Marcel Verdier and Constant Troyon, but above all the work of Gustave Courbet.

Gustave_Brion

Gustave Brion (1824–1877) was a French painter and illustrator. He was born at Rothau in the department of Bas-Rhin on 24 October 1824. In 1841, in Strasbourg, he entered the studio of Gabriel Guérin, with whom he remained three years; he also received tuition from Andreas Friedrich, the sculptor; but he soon afterwards went to Paris, where his first work appeared at the Salon in 1847; it was entitled Interior of a Farm at Dambach. Six years later he gained a medal of the second class for his 'Schlitteurs de la Foret-Noire' and the Potato Harvest during an Inundation, the former of which was subsequently burned at Strassburg by the Prussians. His fame was further established by his Le Train de Bois sur le Rhin in 1855, and from that time his works continued to increase in public favour, and gained considerable praise and recompense for their author. Brion received numerous medals in 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, &c., and the decoration of the Legion of Honour in 1863. He died in Paris 3 November 1877.
With few exceptions, such as the 'Siege of a Town by Romans under Julius Caesar, painted on commission for Napoleon III, and at the cost of much research to the artist, Brion rarely indulged in historical subjects. He delighted to represent peasants in their natural avocations: here they gather in their potatoes or chat by the village well; there they conduct barges laden with wood down the river; now we see them at a marriage, now hearing mass or attending a burial. Putting aside several subjects drawn from Normandy and Brittany, from the Basque Provinces, and from a stay in Italy, Brion remained true to his love of
Alsace, and it is of the doings of her peasantry that he tells us in his paintings.
Brion also worked as a book illustrator. His most famous designs are those for the first edition of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables, for which he created the first portrayal of Inspector Javert. He also illustrated Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, in which he depicted Quasimodo and Esmeralda.
Brion was a nephew of the legendary Friederike Brion.

Luise_Büchner

Elisabeth Emma Louise "Luise" Büchner (12 June 1821, Darmstadt – 28 November 1877) was a German women's rights activist and writer of essays, novels, travelogues and poetry.
She published Die Frauen und ihr Beruf (Woman and Their Vocation) anonymously in 1855, in which she campaigned for equality of education for girls, with the opportunity for productive vocations as adult women, but also to better prepare young women for motherhood. Büchner rejected the unproductive pastimes increasingly seen as acceptable for middle-class women whose leisure time was increasing due to advances in machinery. During this period, economic factors led to fewer marriages and so an increase in single women. Die Frauen was reviewed extensively in German newspapers and journals, and was sold even in England, France and Russia. Three more editions were published through 1872.
Büchner became the director of the Alice Association for Women's Education and Employment, which had been founded by Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse, and sponsored training in nursing and trades. Through this organisation Büchner was important in the development of nursing as a paid vocation without denominational attachments, rather than a voluntary activity associated with religious orders.
Among her siblings, five of whom survived infancy, were Georg, Ludwig, Wilhelm, and Alexander. During World War II, in September 1944, the house in which the Büchner family had long lived was bombed. With it, family records were lost, and among the deaths was her nephew Georg, the living family member who had been closest to Luise. These losses have limited scholarship on Büchner.