Max Beauvoir(1939-2015)

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, August 25th 1939 In 1958 he graduated with a degree in chemistry from City College of New York 1959 he studied at the Sorbonne. By 1962, he had obtained a graduate degree in biochemistry 1965, At Cornell Medical Center, he supervised a staff synthesizing metabolic steroids Beauvoir joined an engineering company that had him set up shop in North Jersey, then a digital equipment(DEC)company in Massachusetts. His interest in steroids brought him back to Haiti in January 1973 to experiment with hydrocortisone synthesized from plants. From 1974 until 1994, Beauvoir was one of the most respected voodoo priests on the island, enjoying celebrity, power, and great esteem. Beauvoir is a Western- educated biochemist who has a hecogenin US patent in 1979 When Harvard anthropologist Wade Davis came to Haiti in 1982 to research what would become his acclaimed book on Haiti, voodoo, and zombies. The Serpent and the Rainbow it was Beauvoir to whom he turned for help.