Icery, Edmond
Mémoire sur le Pou à poche blanche, présenté à la Chambre d’Agriculture de l’Ile Maurice
Ile Maurice, Imp. de Channel, 1864
8vo (264 x 175 mm) de 1 unn.l., 8 pp. et 10 lithographed plates. Half polished calf (contemporary binding).
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Doctor and farmer Paul Laurent Edmond Icery invented in 1863 the Icery process for decolourising sugar by using sodium sulphite. His method was then used by the entire sugar industry.

Icery’s industry started in 1858 when he became co-owner of La Gaieté and Emilia, in the Flacq district of Mauritius. He then began to study the properties of sugarcane juice. His sugar was rewarded with a prize in 1859 at the Intercolonial Exhibition.

In 1864 he submitted a report to the Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture which proved to be crucial. He presented and analysed the threat of the white pouch louse to cane and gave the species its scientific name Pulvinaria iceryi.

Icery sets out to examine this insect, a parasite of sugarcane in order to find a solution to its spread. He analyses “”son organisation, son développement, son mode de reproduction et ses allures ainsi que son degré de résistance “.

Icery concluded by assigning it a place in the zoological classification. He makes it a homopter of the gallinsect family.

Stamp and armorial bookplate of N. de Treviso.

Unbound, wear on the corners.