French pathologists

Charles Jacques Bouchard (6 September 1837 – 28 October 1915) was a French pathologist and an esperantist born in Montier-en-Der, a commune the department of Haute-Marne.

Georges Henri Roger (4 June 1860 – 19 April 1946) was a French physiologist born in Paris. He studied medicine in Paris, where he later became a professor of experimental pathology and physiology. In 1930 he was appointed dean of the medical faculty.
In the field of experimental pathology, he performed research of cholelithiasis and hepatic disease. Among his written works were articles on diseases of the liver, gastro-intestinal tract and spinal cord. In addition his 1897-98 lectures at the University of Paris were translated into English, and published as "Introduction to the Study of Medicine" (1901)
With Georges-Fernand Widal (1862-1929) and Pierre Teissier (1864-1932), he was co-author of the 22-volume Nouveau traité de médecine (New Treatise of Medicine), which was a comprehensive French masterpiece of anatomy and pathology. His name is lent to the eponymous "Roger's reflex"; a term that is sometimes used to describe excessive salivation due to irritation of the lower part of the esophagus.

Gustave-Édouard Laguesse (23 April 1861 – 6 November 1927) was a French pathologist and histologist born in Dijon.
In 1885 he received his medical doctorate in Paris and from 1891 performed scientific research in Lille. In 1896 he became a professor of histology.Laguesse is remembered for his histopathological work involving the pancreas. In 1893 he named the small cellular clusters of the pancreas the "Islets of Langerhans", in honor of their discoverer Paul Langerhans (1847-1888). At the time of its discovery, Langerhans provided an excellent description of the structures, but offered no further conclusions as to their function. Laguesse postulated that the Islets of Langerhans produced secretions that played a regulatory role in digestion. Laguesse's research was considered a major step on the path of discovery of a new hormone in the early days of endocrinology.

Charles-Émile François-Franck (7 May 1849, Paris – 8 September 1921, Paris) was a French physiologist.
From 1871 he served as a hospital intern in Bordeaux, later returning to Paris, where he worked as an assistant to Étienne-Jules Marey in the laboratory of pathophysiology at the Collège de France. In 1885 he was named director of the laboratory, and in 1890, attained the title of professor. Among his assistants at the Collège de France was neuropathologist Gustave Roussy. In 1887 he was elected as a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine.His research included studies of vasomotor regulation, pulmonary blood flow and investigations involving the cerebral localization of function. He was a pioneer of sympathectomy (interruption of the sympathetic nervous system for relieving pain) and remembered for his usage of cinematography to accurately record body movements.

Émile Charles Achard (24 July 1860 – 7 August 1944) was a French internist born in Paris.In Paris, he served as médecin des hôpitaux (from 1893), later becoming a professor of general pathology and therapeutics. In 1910, he was appointed professor of internal medicine at the University of Paris (Hôpital Beaujon). During his career, he also served as a physician at Hôpital Cochin.

In 1896, along with Raoul Bensaude (1866–1938), he identified a disease he called paratyphoid fever. They were able to isolate the cause of illness to a microbe now classified as salmonella paratyphi B.
A postmenopausal condition known as "diabetic-bearded woman syndrome" is sometimes referred to as "Achard-Thiers syndrome", and the eponymous "Achard syndrome" is a disorder characterized by arachnodactyly, brachycephaly, a receding lower jaw and joint laxity in the extremities.In 1897, along with internist Joseph Castaigne (1871–1951), he developed a urinary test using methylene blue dye for examining the excretory function of the kidneys. The procedure was to become known as the "Achard-Castaigne test". With Castaigne and Georges Maurice Debove (1845–1920), he published Manuel des maladies du tube digestif.

Adrien Achille Proust (18 March 1834 – 26 November 1903) was a French epidemiologist and hygienist. He was the father of novelist Marcel Proust and doctor Robert Proust.He studied medicine in Paris, where in 1862 he obtained his medical doctorate. Beginning in 1863 he worked as chef de clinique, and in 1866 earned his agrégation with the thesis Des différentes formes de ramollissement du cerveau (On different forms of softening of the brain). In 1869, he was sent on a mission to Russia and Persia in order to conduct cholera research – a journey in which he also visited Athens, Constantinople, Messina and several locations in Germany.He was a professor of hygiene at the faculty of medicine in Paris, and chief physician at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris. He was a member of the Comité d'Hygiène publique de France and of the Académie de médecine (from 1879), serving as its secretary from 1883 to 1888.In 1888, Adrien Proust, believing like many doctors of his day that masturbation may lead to homosexuality, sent his son Marcel to a brothel with 10 francs. Marcel would relate the awkward experience of what occurred there in a letter to his grandfather.Adrien Proust is mentioned in Love in the Time of Cholera, a 1985 novel by Gabriel García Márquez.

Louis-Antoine Ranvier (2 October 1835 – 22 March 1922) was a French physician, pathologist, anatomist and histologist, who discovered the nodes of Ranvier, regularly spaced discontinuities of the myelin sheath, occurring at varying intervals along the length of a nerve fiber.