Louis Charles Émile Lortet

Life & Legacy

Louis Charles Émile Lortet (22 August 1836 – 26 December 1909) was a French physician, botanist, zoologist and Egyptologist who was a native of Oullins.
He earned his medical doctorate in 1861, and his degree in natural sciences in 1867. He served as premier doyen at the Faculty of Medicine of Lyon from 1877 until 1906. Also, from 1868 to 1909, he was director of the natural history museum in Lyon.
Lortet is remembered for his scientific and zoological expeditions to the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon and Egypt). He performed studies of mummified animals from the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, and in 1880 took part in an excavation of a Phoenician necropolis.
Lortet was a member of numerous scientific societies, such as the Société de géographie de Lyon, being a founding member in 1858. Species with the epithet of lorteti are named in his honor; an example being the pufferfish species Carinotetraodon lorteti.