19th-century French physicians

Ernest Henri Besnier (French: [benje]; 21 April 1831 – 15 May 1909, Paris) was a French dermatologist and medical director of the Hôpital Saint-Louis in Paris.

Stéphane Étienne Tarnier (29 April 1828 – 23 November 1897) was a French obstetrician who was a native of Aiserey.
He studied and practiced medicine in Paris, and is often considered as doyen of French obstetrics during the second half of the nineteenth century. Some of his better-known assistants were obstetricians Pierre-Constant Budin (1846–1907), Paul Bar (1853–1945), Alfred Auvard (1855–1941) and Adolphe Pinard (1844–1934).
Tarnier is remembered for his work involving the perinatal aspects of obstetrics, and in particular, the treatment and well-being of premature infants. In the 1870s he realized that keeping a constant temperature was not sufficient for a premature infant's survival. He believed that isolation, hygiene, appropriate feeding, and a warm, humid environment were also necessary. Inspired by a device used to incubate poultry, Tarnier introduced prototypes of infant incubators to the Paris Maternité in 1881. These devices were basically wooden boxes with glass lids and compartments that contained hot-water bottles. He called his "baby-warming device" a "couveuse", and through it Tarnier was responsible for a 28% decrease in infant mortality over a three-year period at the Paris Maternité.
Tarnier was not the inventor of the infant incubator, but was the first to apply it for regular care of the premature. In 1857 surgeon Jean-Louis-Paul Denucé (1824–1889) provided the first description of an "incubator crib", and in 1864 obstetrician Carl Credé (1819–1892), constructed a double-wall crib that used circulated hot water to heat the walls of the crib.In the 1880s, Dr. Auvard made modifications to Tarnier's couveuse. The "Auvard incubator" was an inexpensive device of simple design that soon became widely popular, and variants of this incubator were still in use into the 20th century. A type of axis-traction forceps called the "Tarnier forceps" is named after him.

Samuel Jean Pozzi (3 October 1846 – 13 June 1918) was a French surgeon and gynecologist. He was also interested in anthropology and neurology. He is remembered today for John Singer Sargent's portrait of him.
After studying medicine in Paris, Pozzi volunteered as a medic during the Franco-Prussian War. He later specialized in gynecological and abdominal surgery, establishing the first Chair of Gynecology in Paris in 1884, and performing the first gastroenterostomy in France. Pozzi was elected to the French Academy of Medicine in 1896, and co-founded the Revue de gynécologie et de chirurgie abdominale in 1897.
His personal life was marked by a tumultuous marriage, multiple affairs, and cultural interests, including friendships with notable figures such as Sarah Bernhardt and Marcel Proust. In the political arena, Pozzi served as a senator for his hometown, Bergerac, and supported the controversial Alfred Dreyfus during his trial. He died in 1918, when a disgruntled patient fatally shot him.

Édouard Toulouse (10 December 1865 in Marseille – 19 January 1947 in Paris) was a French psychiatrist, journalist, and director of the literary magazine Demain.

Jules-Émile Péan (29 November 1830 – 20 January 1898) was one of the great French surgeons of the 19th century.
Péan was born in 1830 in Marboué, french department of Eure-et-Loir. He studied at the college of Chartres and then studied medicine in Paris under Auguste Nélaton. He was appointed a doctor in 1861 and worked at St. Antoine and St. Louis up to 1893. He then created with its expenses the international hospital. He wrote two volumes of private clinics (1876 and 1890). He was elected to the French Académie Nationale de Médecine on November 22, 1887, and was awarded the rank of Commander of Legion of Honor in 1893. He died on January 20, 1898, in Paris. A street, Rue Péan, was named after him in Châteaudun, Cloyes-sur-le-Loir and Paris.
Péan was very admired and a follower of hygiene, he disputed the discoveries of Louis Pasteur. He refused to dissect corpses and operated preferably in residence. Although a teacher, he was never named professor. He was the first to make a successful surgical ablation of one cyst of the ovary in 1864. He was also a pioneer in performing a vaginal hysterectomy for carcinoma in 1890. He is believed to have performed the first surgery to correct diverticula of the bladder in 1895. In 1893, he attempted the first known total joint arthroplasty, operating on the shoulder of a French waiter; it had to be removed two years later due to infection. He popularized the hemostat that is still used in operating rooms around the world.

Paul-Ferdinand Gachet (30 July 1828 – 9 January 1909) was a French physician most famous for treating the painter Vincent van Gogh during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise. Gachet was a great supporter of artists and the Impressionist movement. He was an amateur painter, signing his works "Paul van Ryssel", referring to his birthplace: Rijsel is the Dutch name of Lille.

Auguste Gabriel Maurice Raynaud (10 August 1834 – 29 June 1881) was the French medical doctor who discovered Raynaud syndrome, a vasospastic disorder which contracts blood vessels in extremities and is the "R" in the CREST syndrome acronym, in the late 19th century.

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.

Casimir-Joseph Davaine (19 March 1812 – 14 October 1882) was a French physician known for his work in the field of microbiology. He was a native of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, department of Nord.
In 1850, Davaine along with French pathologist Pierre François Olive Rayer, discovered a certain microorganism in the blood of diseased and dying sheep. In the diseased blood, Rayer and Davaine observed the bacillus that is known today as Bacillus anthracis, the causative bacterium of anthrax. Soon afterwards, Rayer published a description of the bacillus in a paper titled, Inoculation du sang de rate (1850).In 1863, Davaine demonstrated that the bacillus could be directly transmitted from one animal to another. He was able to identify the causative organism, but was unaware of its true etiology. Later on, German microbiologist Robert Koch investigated the etiology of Bacillus anthracis, and discovered its ability to produce "resting spores" that could stay alive in the soil for a long period of time to serve as a future source of infection.Casimir Davaine is also credited for pioneer work in the study of sepsis (blood poisoning).