Étienne Raoul

Étienne Raoul was a French naval surgeon and naturalist, born in Brest on 23 July 1815 and died on 30 March 1852. He studied at the medical school in Brest and was appointed surgeon, third class, in 1836. He sailed as surgeon-naturalist on the L'Aube to Akaroa in New Zealand, where he spent two and a half years from 1840 collecting botanical specimens. Back in Paris he worked at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle to describe about 450 species, and in 1846 he published Choix de plantes de la Nouvelle-Zélande, naming species such as karamū and matagouri. He took his medical doctorate in 1844 with a thesis on heart disease and rheumatic ailments, and in 1849 became medical professor at the port of Brest. In 1851 he published a medical and hygiene guide for merchant vessels visiting the west coast of Africa. The genus Raoulia is named after him.