Jean Pierre Joseph d'Arcet

Jean Pierre Joseph d'Arcet was a French chemist, born in Paris on 31 August 1777 and dying on 2 August 1844. He was the son of the chemist Jean Darcet, was educated at first at the Collège de France where his father worked, and then became a student of Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin. He worked in the mint, took part in metallurgical experiments, studied bronze alloy compositions, and served as master of the Paris mint until his death. Alongside this he carried out private research and found a way to extract gelatin efficiently from bones, patenting the manufacture of bone glue and broth in 1814 and proposing the gelatin as a nutritional supplement for the poor. It was introduced as a diet at the Saint-Antoine Hospital by the Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt and for army troops, although by 1831 several physicians opposed the merits of food gelatin. His son Felix, who lived from 1807 to 1846, also became a chemist.