James Perchard Tupper

James Perchard Tupper M.D. (1 May 1775 – 1852) was a British botanist and surgeon who was one of the first to argue for plant sentience.

Career

Tupper was born in Guernsey on 1 May 1775. He studied medicine at Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital in London but developed an interest in botany. James Edward Smith who held the Botanical Chair at Guy's Hospital encouraged Tupper to study botany. Tupper was skeptical of mechanical explanations for plant behavior and was convinced that plants could experience sensations.

Tupper was attached to the embassy under Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and in 1813 to Emperor Alexander I of Russia who gave him an expensive finger ring worth 150 guineas. Tupper was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to the Prince Regent in 1816. He obtained his M.D. from Marischal College in June 1817. He moved to Paris in 1817. He argued that plants demonstrate their instincts when they turn towards sunlight, climb up trees or attach themselves to objects. Tupper was influenced by the great chain of being and believed that animals, humans and plants are all suffused with instinct.

Tupper thought that a benevolent Creator would "bestow upon vegetables a capacity to enjoy their own state of life". He has been cited as an early botanist "attracted to the notion that the ability of plants to feel pain or pleasure demonstrated the universal beneficence of a Creator".

Death

Tupper died in Boulogne-sur-Mer, aged 78.

Selected publications

An Essay on the Probability of Sensation in Vegetables (1811) An Inquiry into Dr. Gall's System (1819)