Jean René Constant Quoy

In 1806, he began his medical studies at the school of naval medicine at Rochefort, afterwards serving as an auxiliary-surgeon on a trip to the Antilles (1808–1809). After earning his medical doctorate in 1814 at Montpellier, he was surgeon-major on a journey to Réunion (1814–1815).

Along with Joseph Paul Gaimard, he served as naturalist and surgeon aboard the Uranie under Louis de Freycinet from 1817 to 1820, and on the Astrolabe (1826–1829) under the command of Jules Dumont d'Urville. In July 1823 he and Gaimard presented a paper to the Académie royale des Sciences on the origin of coral reefs, taking issue with the then widespread belief that these were constructed by coral polyps from bases in very deep water and arguing instead that the original bases must have been in shallow water because reef-building polyps were confined to water depths of just a few tens of metres. Their work was quoted by Charles Darwin in his seminal monograph on the origin on reefs and atolls. While on the Astrolabe expedition Quoy and Gaimard collected and described Tachygia microlepis, the now extinct giant skink of Tonga.

Along with his skills as a naturalist, Quoy was acclaimed for his work as an artist.

In 1824, he was appointed professor of anatomy at the Rochefort Naval School, where from 1832 to 1835, he was a professor of medicine. He then continued his career at naval hospitals in Toulon (1835–1837) and in Brest (1838–1848), afterwards being chosen inspector general of the Naval Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (serving from 1848 to 1858).

Taxonomy

The following genera or species were named in his honor:

• Cracticus quoyi Lesson, 1827 – the black butcherbird
• Quoya Labbé, 1934 – a genus of sea slugs
• Quoyia A. Gray, 1839 – a genus of extinct marine gastropods
• Terebra quoygaimardi Cernohorsky, 1976 – a species of sea snail
• Pilumnus quoyi H. Milne-Edwards, 1834 – a species of crab
• Ischnochiton quoyanus J. Thiele, 1910 – a species of chiton
• Eulamprus quoyii A.M.C. Duméril & Bibron, 1839 – a species of skink
• Quoya Gaudich. – a genus of Australian plants