Jean Desbouvrie

Who is Jean Desbouvrie?

Jean Desbouvrie was a French amateur bird trainer who believed that swallows could be put to use for military communications. During the late 19th century Desbouvrie persuaded the government of France to conduct a study on the feasibility of using swallows as messengers. His early demonstrations showed that swallows could exhibit homing behavior and that when they did so they flew much faster than homing pigeons. Desbouvrie also succeeded in curbing the birds' natural migratory behavior. After obtaining authorization from the government for follow-up testing, Desbouvrie delayed and did not follow through with rigorous experimentation.

Desbouvrie received international attention in the press for two unrelated reasons: the bird experiments, and also for a proposal he made to the Paris Academy of Medicine. The Academy published his paper, which declared chronic alcoholism to be a serious public health problem and offered a solution in the form of a claimed cure for hangovers. Desbouvrie hypothesized that the consumption of food which contained an appropriate balance of fat and albumen would prevent hangovers from occurring. He sent the Academy a selection of homemade chocolates along with his manuscript, with assurances that he had tested the concoction extensively upon himself.