Antoine Germain Labarraque

Antoine-Germain Labarraque (28 March 1777 – 9 December 1850) was a French chemist and pharmacist, notable for formulating and finding important uses for "Eau de Labarraque" or "Labarraque's solution", a solution of sodium hypochlorite widely used as a disinfectant and deodoriser.

Labarraque's use of sodium and calcium hypochlorite solutions in the disinfection of animal gut processing facilities and morgues, as well as his published reports of their application to treat gangrene and putrescent wounds in living persons in the 1820s, established this practice long before Ignaz Semmelweis employed the same solutions to prevent "cadaveric particles" from traveling from hospital dissecting rooms to patient examination rooms, starting in 1847. These findings and practices are notable for providing an empirical discovery of antisepsis, starting some 40 years before Pasteur and Lister began to establish the theoretical basis of this practice.

Labarraque's solutions and techniques remain in use to the present day.

Labarraque was born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, on May 29, 1777, the son of Francois Labarraque and Christine Sousbielle. He spent over 2 years as a pupil of a pharmacist called Préville in Orthez, but was then drafted into the army as a "Grenadier de la Tour d'Auvergne". He was promoted to battlefield seargent, and eventually became pharmacist-in-chief at the military hospital of Berra. He contracted Typhus and after his recovery was discharged from the military in 1795.

Having taken a liking to Pharmacy, he went to Montpellier to study under Jean-Antoine Chaptal. He then went to Paris, where he worked as a pharmacist and studied at the "College of Pharmacy" under various teachers including Louis Nicolas Vauquelin. He qualified as a master of Pharmacy in 1805, and in the same year published a work, "Sur la dissolution du phosphore" (on the dissolution of Phosphorus) followed by "Sur les electuaires" (On electuaries). He became a member of the "Sociétés de Phamacie et de Médecine" in 1809 after presenting a paper, "Sur les teintures alcooliques et quelques expériences sur la teinture alcoolique de benjoin" (Alcoholic tinctures and some experiments on the alcoholic tincture of Benzoin). Subsequently, Labarraque took part in several commissions to examine presentations made to the society.

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