Description
Autograph Letter Signed ‘Villermé’, addressed ‘Monsieur’ [Pierre Hippolyte Boutigny, professor of chemistry], making arrangements for their meeting. In French. A good one page example, 8 x 5½ inches, integral blank leaf, remains of guard. Paris, 3 April 1862. Louis Rene Villermé (1782-1863), doctor and sociologist. Early in life he served as an army surgeon (1802-14). He wrote two important memoirs on the mortality among prisoners and promiscuity in gaols (1820, 1829) and established the “Annales d’hygiène” (1829). His major work, the ‘Table of the physical and moral state of the workmen employed in silk and wool, cotton manufacture’, published in 1840, led to new laws on child labour and on town planning.