Geoffroy, Étienne François

Geoffroy, Étienne François (ātyĕn` fräNswä` zhôfrwä`), 1672–1731, French physician and chemist, also known as Geoffroy the Elder. He became a pharmacist in 1694 and received an M.D. at Paris in 1704. He was professor of medicine at the Collège Royal from 1709 until his death and dean of the Paris Faculty of Medicine from 1726 to 1729. In 1718 he advanced the general proposition that if two substances in combination encounter a third with which one of the two has a greater affinity, that one will leave the original combination and unite with the third substance to form a new compound. He gave a 16-column table showing the order of many such displacements, the first of many "Tables of Affinity." Geoffroy was also largely responsible for a pharmacopoeia published by the Paris Faculty of Medicine in 1732.