Theodore Nicolas Gobley

Theodore Gobley
Photo taken around 1860
Born	11 May 1811 (1811-05-11) Paris, France
Died	1 September 1876(1876-09-01) (aged 65) Bagneres de Luchon, France
Occupation	Pharmacist and Biochemist

Theodore (Nicolas) Gobley (French: [ɡɔblɛ]), who first isolated, and ultimately determined the chemical structure of lecithin, the first identified and characterized member of the phospholipids class, and a pioneer researcher in the study and analysis of the chemical components of brain tissues, was born in Paris on 11 May 1811 and died in Bagneres-de-Luchon (a small city in central Pyrenees famous in the second half of the 19th century for its thermal waters) on 1 September 1876.

Gobley's family originated from the Yonne region, a very rural hilly area of Burgundy, and the small city Fulvy. His father had settled at the end of the 18th century as a wine broker in Paris, marrying a young lady in a family long established (since at least the beginning of the 17th century) in that trade in the capital city of France (that family, Boutron, was registered in the 17th and 18th centuries as one of the 12 suppliers of wines to the King's Court).

Wine trading had strong links with alcoholic distillation, some close kin of the Boutron family were indeed spirits distillers, and it is likely this environment that led Theodore to studies in chemistry and pharmacy.

Indeed, an historical study conducted in 1957 by P. et C. Chatagnon on the early steps of brain tissues chemical structure studies mentions that Gobley effected a stay as apprentice by one of his parents named Guerin, indicated as pharmacist (actually, his brother-in-law, Denis Guerin (1798–1888), pharmacist in Paris for a few years in the early 1830s, but more well known as mayor of the city of Fontainebleau during close to 30 years, from 1843 till 1871, and so far as known, not related to the Boutron family).

Whatever the initial lead, further on Gobley entered full grade studies in pharmacy and in the early 1830s attended courses delivered by one of the great figures of French pharmaceutical and chemistry arts of that time, Pierre Jean Robiquet, of whom he became a close collaborator, and ultimately his son-in-law, through marrying Laure Robiquet, one of the daughters of his master and mentor.

Robiquet (1780–1840), a long standing professor at the Ecole de Pharmacie in Paris (since 1811) was a very prominent, respected and honoured player among the French chemists/pharmacists community of the first half of the 19th century: member of the "" later on designated as the "" (1817), of which he was Secretary General then President, (1817 till his death) (see (http://www.shp-asso.org/)), member of the "Académie de Médecine" (1820), member of the Académie des Sciences, distinguished with the order of Légion d'Honneur, author of numerous studies and pioneering work in the research of complex molecules in natural bodies, either plants or animals, who had isolated such fundamentals products, as caffeine, cantharidin, and most of all the alizarin, a powerful and stable red dye that was to become one of the first dyes to be mass-produced through a pure chemical synthesis path.