He received his education at the University of Montpellier, where he studied botany with Pierre Baux (1708-1790).

After spending a few years in Paris, he returned to Montpellier in 1734, where he served as a professor of physiology and pathology.

At Montpellier, he made important improvements to its botanical garden, which included construction of its first greenhouse.

He was a friend to Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné (1707—1778), to whom Sauvages de Lacroix sent botanical specimens from the Montpellier region for study.

[3][4] Sauvages de Lacroix explained his nosology in the 1763 treatise Nosologia Methodica, a work that reportedly was an inspiration to Philippe Pinel (1745—1826) and his early research of mental illnesses.