Marcelle Lapicque

Marcelle de Heredia Lapicque (17 July 1873 – 1962) was a French neurophysiologist known for her research on nerve impulses (chronaxie) and the effects of poisons, especially strychnine, on chronaxie. She supervised the Laboratoire des Hautes-Études General Physiology laboratory, and published over eighty papers.

Life

Lapicque was born on 17 July 1873 in Paris. Her father was a landowner and Paris municipal councillor, French politician Severiano de Heredia. She studied science at the University of Paris, and was a fellow student of Louis Lapicque, who she had a son with in 1898, although they were not married until 1902. Lapicque completed her dissertation on nerve impulses, in which she was supervised by her husband. She was in charge of the Laboratoire des Hautes-Études General Physiology laboratory until her death. Marcelle Lapicque, though overshadowed in histories of science by her husband, was an influential scientist in her own right, publishing many papers as sole author. Louis Lapicque "insisted on the importance of his wife as equal co-worker in all his research". In total Lapicque published eighty papers with her husband and his students, but her name is not remembered as the theories of chronaxie grew unpopular. She was a member of the Société de Biologie, and published often their Bulletin. Lapicque's son Charles went on to become an engineer and a painter, and married the daughter of atomic scientist Jean Perrin.

Lapicque died around 1962. She continued to run the laboratory up until her death, even after her husband died in 1952.