Francois Quesnay (1694-1774), French physician and economist. Quesnay studied medicine in Paris, and became physician to King Louis XV of France. From the late 1740s he began to devote more time to the study of economics, gathering around him a group of leading economic thinkers (the Physiocrates). It is for his economic ideas that Quesnay is best known. Scottish economist Adam Smith paid tribute to the output of the Physiocrates, who said the wealth of nations derived from agriculture. Lithograph from 'Galerie medicale' (1825-1829), a collection of portraits by Pierre Roch Vigneron (1789-1872).