1940 deaths

Joseph Malègue (8 December 1876 – 30 December 1940), was a French catholic novelist, principally author of Augustin ou le Maître est là (1933) and Pierres noires. Les classes moyennes du Salut. He was also a theologian and published some theological surveys, as Pénombres about Faith and against Fideism. His first novel is, following the French historian of spirituality Émile Goichot, the most accurately linked to Modernism. Pope Francis quoted in several circumstances, among them in El Jesuita this Malègue's view about Incarnation : ‘’ It is not Christ who is incomprehensible for me if He is God, it is God who is strange for me if He is not Christ.‘’

Frédéric Jean Edmond Swarts (2 September 1866 – 6 September 1940) was a Belgian chemist who prepared the first chlorofluorocarbon, CF2Cl2 (Freon-12) as well as several other related compounds. He was a professor in the civil engineering at the University of Ghent. In addition to his work on organofluorine chemistry, he authored the textbook "Cours de Chimie Organique." He was a son of Theodore Swarts (chemist, *1839 Antwerpen; †1911 Kortenberg, Belgium) and a colleague of Leo Baekeland.

Claudius Regaud (born 30 January 1870 in Lyons, France; died 29 December 1940 in Couzon-au-Mont-d'Or, France) was a French medical doctor and biologist, one of the pioneers in radiotherapy at the Curie Institute.

Batty (Jean-Baptiste) Weber (1860–1940) is considered to have been one of Luxembourg's most influential journalists and authors, contributing much to the development of the country's national identity. His style is characterized by his sense of humour and skillful use of irony.

Robert von Ostertag (March 24, 1864 – October 7, 1940) was a German veterinarian who was a native of Schwäbisch Gmünd.
He studied medicine in Berlin and veterinary medicine in Stuttgart, afterwards becoming a professor of hygiene at Tierärztliche Hochschule Stuttgart (1891–1892) and at the College of Veterinary Medicine in Berlin (1892–1907). In 1907 he became head of the veterinary department in the Reich Health Office in Berlin. In 1910 he traveled to German Southwest Africa in order to study diseases of sheep, and in 1913 he investigated rinderpest in German East Africa. In 1920 he became head of veterinary services in Germany.
In the 1890s, Ostertag started a rigorous program of meat inspection in Berlin, and he was referred to as the "Father of Veterinary Meat Inspection" in Germany. Ostertag's meat inspection act of 1900 greatly reduced incidences of bovine tuberculosis in human beings.
He was the author of numerous publications in veterinary science, and is remembered for his influential Lehrbuch für Fleischbeschauer ("Handbook of Meat Inspection"), a book that was later translated into English.
His name is lent to Ostertagia, a genus of attenuated nematodes of the family Trichostrongylidae. These organisms are found in cysts on the wall of the abomasum of cattle and other ruminants. The disease associated with the organism is called "ostertagiosis".

Henri Meige (11 February 1866 – 29 September 1940) was a French neurologist born in Moulins-sur-Allier. He characterized Meige's syndrome in 1910.He studied medicine in Paris under Jean Charcot (1825–1893), earning his doctorate in 1893. Afterwards he worked at the Salpêtrière and the École des Beaux-Arts, where in the 1920s he was appointed professor.
With Édouard Brissaud (1852–1909) he researched skeletal changes in acromegaly, concluding that gigantism in adolescents is fundamentally the same disease as acromegaly in adults. During World War I he conducted studies of neuropathy with Pierre Marie (1853–1940).
Meige is best known for his work with extrapyramidal lesions. In 1902, with Eugene Feindel, he published an important work on motor disturbances, blepharospasms and tics. In contrast to Charcot, Meige asserted that disturbances of the extrapyramidal system were manifestations of pathological changes outside the pyramidal system.He was editor of the journals Nouvelle iconographie de la Salpêtrière and Schriftleiter of the Revue Neurologique.

Heinrich Hubert Maria Josef Houben (27 October 1875, in Waldfeucht (Rheinland) Germany – 28 June 1940, in Tübingen) was a German chemist. He made achievements within ketone synthesis, terpenes, and camphor studies. After being wounded several times on the front lines in World War I, Houben was made head of the war laboratory. He improved the Hoesch reaction which is now normally called Houben-Hoesch reaction. Houben organized and made a major rework of the book Methods of Organic Chemistry which is now referred to as Houben-Weyl Methods of Organic Chemistry.

Lucien Louis Daniel (1 November 1856 – 26 December 1940) was a French botanist. He was a professor of applied botany at the University of Rennes. His speciality was grafting.
He is the binomial author of a plant species in the family Rosaceae: Pirocydonia winkleri L.L.Daniel ex Bois, an asexual artificial hybrid. (Revue Horticole. Paris. 1914, n. s. xiv. 27)
In 1904 he was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal by the Royal Horticultural Society.

Charles Lamy or M. Lamy (28 August 1857 – 15 June 1940) was the stage name of the French actor Charles Castarède.

Paul Guidé (March 18, 1884 – October 16, 1940) was a French film actor of the silent era. Guidé appeared in more than sixty films before 1930 including La dame de Monsoreau (1913) in which he played Henry III of France.