RUFZ DE LAYISON, Etienne (roofs), West Indian physician, born in St. Pierre, Martinique, 14 January, 1806. He studied medicine in Paris, was admitted among the pupils of the Hotel Dieu hospital, and in 1835 obtained his diploma as doctor. In 1836 he was sent by the government to Marseilles to inquire into the means of checking an epidemic of Asiatic cholera. In 1838 he returned to Martinique to practise his profession, and became afterward chief surgeon of the hospital of St. Pierre, and superintendent of the lunatic asylum of the colony. He specially engaged in researches upon the poisons that were used by the negroes and the extinct tribes of Carib Indians, and presented some interesting memoirs to the French academy of medicine, which were printed in the annals of that society. After the revolution of 1848 he was president of the state council of the colony in 1848-'52. Returning to Paris in 1856, he was manager of the Zoological garden of acclimatation in 1860-'5, was elected delegate of Martinique to the colonial committee in 1867-'70, and in 1875 be, came an associate member of the French academy of medicine. His works include " Etudes historiques et statistiques sur la population de Saint Pierre de la Martinique" (St. Pierre, 1854); "Memoire sur la maison des alienes de Saint Pierre de la Martinique" (Paris, 1858) ; and "Enquete sur le Bothrops lanceole, ou vipdre fer de lance, le serpent de la Martinique" (1860).