Delile studied botany with Jean Lemonnier, and was in the
Paris medical school in 1796.
Egypt Delile participated in
Napoleon Bonaparte's
Egyptian Campaign where he described
lotus and
papyrus. Director of the
Cairo botanical garden, he wrote the
botanical sections of
Travel in Lower and Upper Egypt by
Dominique Vivant. He made a cast of the
Rosetta Stone which allowed the reproduction of its
Greek and
Demotic inscriptions in his ''Description de l'Égypte''.
United States In 1802, Delile was appointed French vice consul at
Wilmington, North Carolina, and also asked to form an herbarium of all American plants that could be naturalized in France. He sent to Paris several cases of seeds and grains, and discovered some new graminea and presented them to
Palisot de Beauvois, who described them in his
Agrostographie. Raffeneau made extensive explorations through the neighboring states, and, resigning in 1805, began the study of
medicine in New York. During an epidemic of
scarlet fever he was active in visiting the tenements of the poor, and in 1807 he obtained the degree of
M.D. Return to France He returned to France, and graduated as doctor in medicine from the
University of Paris in 1809. a post he retained until his death. ==Works==