1956 deaths

Édouard Rist (16 March 1871, Strasbourg – 13 April 1956, Paris) was a French physician who specialized in tuberculosis research (phthisiology). He was the brother of economist Charles Rist.
In 1899/90, he served as an inspector of health and quarantine services in Egypt, and after his return to France, was named laboratory chief at the Hôpital Trousseau in Paris. From 1910 to 1937, he was a physician at the Hôpital Laennec, and concurrently served as a physician at the Dispensaire Léon Bourgeois (1912–37).During World War I he was chef de service of typhoid and para-typhoid hospitals. In 1919, he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal of the United States and made a commander of the Legion of Honour. In 1933, he became a member of the Académie de médecine, of which, he later served as its president. The "Clinique médicale et pédagogique Édouard Rist", located in the 16th district of Paris, is named after him.

Maurice Perrin (21 May 1875 – 18 October 1956) was a French physician and professor of medicine at Nancy.
He earned a bachelor of arts in philosophy at 19, began employment for a hospital in 1898 and earned his MD in 1901 with a thesis on polyneuritis. He became an associate in 1910, and was posted to the tuberculosis clinic where he remained for 25 years.
He published over 200 articles, including his thesis in 1932 focusing on "the Alveolar echinococcosis of the liver". He became a professor of clinical medicine at Nancy in 1936.
He was promoted to the rank of colonel in the French Army Reserves in 1936.

Louis Ombrédanne (5 March 1871 – 4 November 1956) was a French pediatric and plastic surgeon born in Paris. He was the son of general practitioner Emile Ombrédanne.
In 1902 he became surgeon to Parisian hospitals, becoming a professor of surgery in 1907. From 1921 to 1940 he was head of pediatric surgery at the Hôpital Necker.
Ombrédanne's primary field of research was development of new methods of surgery. In 1906 he was the first to describe the use of the pectoralis minor muscle for breast reconstruction following mastectomy. He also introduced transscrotal orchiopexy for surgical repair of an undescended testis.

In 1907, after two fatal anesthetic accidents, Ombrédanne created a prototype of an inhaler as a safe anesthetic device. It consisted of a tin container as reservoir that was fitted with felt to absorb ether, a graduated air inlet, and a respiratory reserve chamber. This device was tested successfully on over 300 patients, and design modifications were later made.
In 1929 Ombrédanne provided an early description of malignant hyperthermia, a condition he described as pallor with hyperthermia in newborns during anesthesia. The disorder is historically referred to as "Ombrédanne syndrome".

André-Alfred Lemierre (July 30, 1875 in Paris – 1956) was a French bacteriologist.He studied in Paris where he became an externe in 1896, interne in 1900. He obtained his doctorate in 1904, became Médecin de Hôpitaux in 1912 and later worked in the Hôpital Bichat. He was habilitated in 1913 and in 1926 was promoted to professor of bacteriology. His works concern investigations on septicaemia, typhus, bilious and urine tract infections, kidney diseases, etc. He described Lemierre's syndrome in 1936 while working as a bacteriologist in the Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris.

Karl von Korff (born 6 October 1867, in Hajen near Gröhnde) was a German anatomist and histologist.
From 1890 to 1895 he studied medicine at the universities of Freiburg, Berlin and Kiel, receiving his doctorate at Kiel in 1895 with the dissertation Beitrag zur Lehre vom Ulcus corneae serpens. In 1896/97 he served as a ship's physician for a Hamburg shipping company traveling to China and Japan, and afterwards worked as an assistant to Walther Flemming at the anatomical institute in Kiel. In 1902 he obtained his habilitation for anatomy, and in 1913 was named an associate professor at the University of Tübingen.In 1905 he described what would later become known as "Korff fibers", defined as fibers that pass between odontoblasts at the periphery of the dental pulp and fan out into the dentin.

Luigi Fantappiè (15 September 1901 – 28 July 1956) was an Italian mathematician, known for work in mathematical analysis and for creating the theory of analytic functionals: he was a student and follower of Vito Volterra. Later in life, he proposed scientific theories of sweeping scope.

Paule Andral (14 September 1879 – 28 March 1956) was a French actress.
Andral was born Paule Roucole in Paris and died in Nice in 1956.

Helmar Lerski (18 February 1871, in Strasbourg – 19 September 1956, in Zürich) was a photographer who laid some of the important foundations of modern photography. His works are on display in the USA, Germany, Israel and Switzerland. He focused mainly on portraits and the technique of photography with mirrors.
His real name was Israel Schmuklerski. In 1876, the family moved to Zürich, Switzerland, where the family was naturalized. In 1888, Lerski emigrated to the United States, where he worked as an actor. Around 1910, he began to photograph. In 1915, he returned to Europe and worked as a cameraman and expert for special effects for many films, including Fritz Lang's Metropolis. At the end of the 1920s, he made a name as an avant-garde portrait photographer.
In 1932, he emigrated with his second wife to Mandate Palestine, where he continued to work as a photographer, cameraman, and film director. On 22 March 1948, they left what was by then Israel and settled again in Zürich.

Paul Robert Bing (5 May 1878 in Strasbourg – 15 March 1956 in Basel) was a Swiss neurologist remembered for Bing's sign.

Leszek Józef Serafinowicz (pen name: Jan Lechoń; 13 March 1899 – 8 June 1956) was a Polish poet, literary and theater critic, diplomat, and co-founder of the Skamander literary movement and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America.