Charles Marie Benjamin Rouget

Charles Marie Benjamin Rouget was the son of a surgeon in the armies of Napoleon. He attended the Collège Sainte-Barbe and received medical training at the teaching hospitals of Paris. Rouget's early researches dealt with the anatomy and physiology of the reproductive organs. He made his best contributions in correlating physiology with microscopic structure. Using special photographic techniques, he was able to examine the muscle fibres of vertebrates under high magnification. As a result of his microscopic research on the female gonads, especially during 1879, he confirmed the presence of primordial egg cells in the ovaries of newly born mammals.

He made noteworthy observations in three areas: contractile tissue, nerve endings, and the eye. For his study of capillary contractility he examined the capillaries of the hyaloid membrane of the eye of a frog. He presented his first findings in 1874, and five years later he made another report on the contractility of blood capillaries.

In 1860 he was appointed to the chair of physiology at the University of Montpellier, where, it is said, he was an efficient and inspiring teacher. In 1879 he was one of two candidates whose names were submitted by the Académie des Sciences for the vacant chair of physiology in the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. Although unsuccessful on this occasion, he was appointed to the professorship when it fell vacant again shortly afterward, and held it until his retirement in 1893. His colleagues specially remembered him as a brilliant histologist.

• Recherches anatomiques et physiologiques sur les appareils érectiles.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences. 1856, 42: 937-941.
• Notes sur des photographies microscopiques relatives à la structure des muscles aux phénomènes de la contraction musculaire.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, 1866, 62: 1314-1317.
• Note sur la termination des nerfs moteur dans les muscles.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, 1866, 62: 1377-1381.
• Note sur les phénomènes de contraction musculaire chez les vorticelles.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, 1867, 64: 1128-1132.
• Sur la structure intime des corpuscules nerveux de la conjonctive et des corpuscules du tact chez l’homme.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, 1868, 66: 825-829.
• Note sur le développement de la tunique contractile des vaisseaux.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, 187, 79: 559-562.
• Terminaison des nerfs musculaires sur les faisceaux striés.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, 1896, 123: 127-128.
• Notice à l’appui de la candidature de M. le Dr. Charles Rouget à la chaire de physiologie vacante A la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier.
  Paris, 1860. Autobiographical note containing information on his earlier career.
• M. Nestor Gréhant:
  Charles Rouget, notice necrologique.
  Nouvelles archives du Muséum d’histoire naturelle, 1900; 6: iii,
• Prix L. La Caze.
  Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, 1887; 105: 1327.
  An appraisal of Rouget’s contribution to medicine.
• Liste des ouvrages et mémoires publiés par M. Ch. Rouget.
  Nouvelles archives du Muséum d’histoire naturelle, 1904, 6: viii-xiii.
  A list of his more important publications.
• A. E. Best:
  Rouget, Charles Marie Benjamin. In: Charles Coulston Gillispie, editor in chief: Dictionary of Scientific Biographies. Charles Scribner’s Sons. New York, 1970. Volume 11, pp. 565-567.
  American Council of Learned Societies.