Biography

French-Swiss physician and naturalist. Born at Grenoble, the infant Garcin left France with his Huguenot family after the Edict of Nantes was renounced in 1685. They settled in Switzerland at Vevey, then at Neuchatel. Garcin went on to study medicine in Holland and after qualifying, aged 24 he joined the Dutch army as a surgeon. Over the next decade Garcin served in Flanders, Spain and Portugal. Returning to Holland he was recruited by the Dutch East India Company, making three voyages to Asia between 1720 and 1729. As well as his medical duties, Garcin made observations on the botany of the places to which he travelled, collecting plant specimens and seeds for European herbaria and gardens. Armed with letters of introduction from Leiden's illustrious Herman Boerhaave, he was given freedom to explore many parts of Indonesia (Java, Sulawesi and Sumatra), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Bengal and the Coromandel Coast, Persia (Iran) and Arabia.

After his last journey to the Indies, Garcin returned to Leiden to study medicine further under Boerhaave, and graduated as a doctor in Reims. He then stayed several months in Geneva, where he married a Mlle Maystre. Together they went to Neuchatel to see Garcin's aging father and settled there, Garcin practising medicine. From that time he did not travel much, but made several excursions in France and Holland and while staying in Hulst in the Netherlands in 1737 he saw Boerhaave for the last time.

Garcin wrote papers on many scientific subjects, but it was his work on the tropical Asian flora that earned his reputation. He was elected a corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1731 and was made an honorary member of the Royal Society of London. He corresponded with several leading naturalists of the day, including Hans Sloane and de Jussieu. His original herbarium does not seem to have survived, but duplicates can be found in several European collections. The best of these is found in the N.L. Burman herbarium in Geneva (G), Burman having used them in producing his Flora indica (1768). He is commemorated in the genus name of the mangosteen, Garcinia mangostana L.

Sources:
J. Briquet, 1940, "Biographies des Botanistes a Genève", Bulletin de la Société Botanique Suisse, 50a: 233-234
M.J. van Steenis Kruseman, "Cyclopedia of Collectors", Flora Malesiana, online edn:
http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/FMCollectors/G/GarcinL.htm.