Gabriel Bertrand

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Gabriel Bertrand (17 May 1867 – 20 June 1962) was a French pharmacologist, biochemist and bacteriologist who worked at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He introduced the term “oxidase” and the idea of trace elements—minerals needed in tiny amounts by the body. In 1894 he studied laccase, an enzyme that oxidizes compounds from lacquer trees. Bertrand’s rule explains that for many micronutrients, health benefits rise with increasing intake up to a point, after which further increases become harmful; in 2005, researchers extended this idea to macronutrients. In 1894, with Césaire Phisalix, he helped develop an antivenom for snake bites. He was elected to the Académie Nationale de Médecine in 1931 and became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1932. His mentors included Émile Duclaux and Edmond Frémy.