Francois Peron, French traveller and naturalist, was educated at Cerilly College, but his studies were interupted by the French Revolution and war with Germany. He joined the French army in 1792 and was wounded (he lost an eye), captured and incarcerated in Magdeburg fortress until repatriated in 1794. He subsequently studied medicine at the medical school in Paris and also studied natural history at the Paris Museum. However, after three years of study he gave it up in order to participate in the voyages of discovery in the southern hemisphere of the corvettes Geographe and Naturaliste, and the schooner Casuarina , from 1800 to 1804. The expedition was led by Captain Nicolas Baudin, while Louis C.D. de Freycinet* commanded the Casuarina. An important achievement of the expedition was the exploration of the south and south-west coasts of Australia. Two features along the coast of Western Australian were named after Peron, namely Cape Peron and the Peron Peninsula.
After his return to France in 1804 Peron edited an account of the expedition and its work, Voyage de decouvertes aux terres australis..., which was published in Paris in two volumes. Volume 1 appeared in 1807, but Peron died before he could finish Volume 2. That volume, published in 1816, was completed by Freycinet, who was also responsible for the maps it contained. Volume 1 was translated into English as A voyage of discovery to the southern hemisphere... (London, 1809). The account reflected Peron's wide interests and zeal as a scientist. These characteristics are also shown by various papers based on his observations during the expedition, for example, on dysentery (1804), a new genus of phosphorescent marine organisms which he named Pysosoma (1804), water temperatures of the sea, both on the surface and at various depths (1804-1805), and practical applications of meteorological observations to hygiene (1808). Furthermore, with the artist Charles A. Lesueur (1778-1846) as co-author, he produced eight more papers during 1808-1810, describing various jelly-fish, molluscs, and other marine animals. In total Peron collected more than 2500 new species of animals. He made a special study of the phosphorescent animals found in the ocean, and of jellyfish, but also carried out ethnographic studies in the Antilles (West Indies), Australia and Tasmania. Among others the South African shells Atlanta peron and Onchidium peron were named after him.
While at the Cape during the 1800-1804 expedition Peron studied the native inhabitants, particularly the genital organs of Khoi (Hottentot) women. His observations were described in "Sur le tablier des femmes hottentotes" (on the apron of female Hottentots), which was published in the Journal de Physique, de Chimie, et de l'Histoire Naturelle (1805, Vol. 61, pp. 210-217). The paper dealt with the unusual length of the labia minora in Khoi women. In 1883, many decades after his death, a small book (75 pp) was published by the Societe Zoologique de France under his name, with Charles A. Lesueur as co-author, entitled Obsevations sur le tablier des femmes hottentotes. It included a note on the French expedition of 1800-1804 by G. Lennier, and a critical review of both steatopygia (an excess of fat on the buttocks) and the apron of Khoisan women by Dr Raphael Blanchard.
Francois Peron should not be confused with Captain Pierre Francois Peron (1769-1846) who sailed to many locations in the late eighteenth century and described his travels in his Memoirs, published in 1824.
