Physicians from Paris

Charles-Emmanuel_Sédillot

Charles-Emmanuel Sédillot (18 September 1804 – 29 January 1883) was a French military physician and surgeon. He was the son of orientalist Jean Jacques Emmanuel Sédillot (1777–1832), and an older brother to historian Louis-Pierre-Eugène Sédillot.
Born in Paris, he studied surgery under Alexis Boyer and Philibert Joseph Roux. In 1836 he became professor of operative surgery at Val-de-Grâce, followed by a professorship at Strasbourg five years later.Sedillot was a pioneer of urethrotomic and gastrointestinal operations, and known for his work with dislocations and his treatment of pyaemia. He is credited with coining the term "microbe" (from micros "small" and bios "life").

Henri_Jules_Louis_Marie_Rendu

Henri Jules Louis Marie Rendu (24 July 1844 – 16 April 1902) was a French physician born in Paris. He was related to glaciologist Louis Rendu (1789–1859).
He initially received an education in sciences at the school of agronomy in Rennes, and from 1865 studied medicine in Paris, becoming an interne in 1868 at the Hôpital Saint-Antoine. He served as a military surgeon during the Franco-Prussian War, and a few years later worked in the department of Pierre Potain (1825–1901) at the Hôpital Necker in Paris.
In 1877 he became médecin des hôpitaux, earning his agrégation the following year with a dissertation on chronic nephritis called Etude comparative des néphrites chroniques. In 1885 he was appointed head of the department of medicine at Hôpital Necker, a position he maintained for the rest of his career.
In 1897 Rendu was elected to the Académie Nationale de Médecine. He was a prolific writer, with many of his medical articles being published in the Bulletin de la Société anatomique de Paris, of which he was its editor in 1873–74. Throughout his career he held an avid interest in natural sciences, and spent considerable time as a botanical collector.

Louis_Ombrédanne

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".

Marie-Guillaume-Alphonse_Devergie

Marie-Guillaume-Alphonse Devergie (February 15, 1798 – October 2, 1879) was a French dermatologist born in Paris.
In 1834 he became a physician of Parisian hospitals (médecin des hôpitaux), and in 1840 succeeded Laurent-Théodore Biett (1781–1840) at the Hôpital Saint-Louis, where he practiced medicine until his retirement. During his career he was also associated with the Hôpitaux Bicêtre and St. Antoine. In 1874 he was elected president of the Académie de Médecine.
In 1856 Devergie was the first to describe a chronic papulosquamous disorder known as pityriasis rubra pilaris, also referred to as "Devergie's disease", a term introduced by Ernest Henri Besnier (1831-1909) in 1889.In 1854 he published an important textbook on skin diseases titled Traité pratique des maladies de la peau.
When he retired, Devergie donated his collection of dermatological watercolors to the Parisian hospital administration. This donation was instrumental in creation of a medical museum at Hôpital Saint-Louis.Devergie was one of the founders of forensic medicine in France, and was co-publisher of the journal Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale with Mathieu Orfila (1787–1853), Gabriel Andral (1797–1876), Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol (1772–1840) and François Leuret (1797–1851). In 1836 he published a two-volume book on judicial medicine called Medecine legale, theorique et pratique.

Octave_Crouzon

Louis Édouard Octave Crouzon (1874–1938) was a French neurologist born in Paris.
He received his doctorate from the University of Paris, where he studied under Paul Georges Dieulafoy (1839–1911), Joseph Babinski (1857–1932) and Pierre Marie (1853–1940). During his medical career, he was associated with the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris and Salpêtrière Hospital.Crouzon specialized in hereditary neurological diseases, especially spinocerebellar ataxia. He did extensive work associated with cervical and lumbar spine deformities, and conducted studies of chronic rheumatic and arthritic disorders. Crouzon was the first to describe a condition he called "craniofacial dysostosis", defined as a genetic branchial arch disorder that results in abnormal facial features. Today this condition is known as Crouzon's syndrome.For his entire career, Crouzon was interested in psychology, particularly in the work of Pierre Janet (1859-1947), whom Crouzon considered a major influence.During his career, he was president of the Société Neurologique de Paris (Neurological Society of Paris) and secretary of the journal Revue Neurologique.

Alexandre_Minkowski

Alexandre Minkowski (5 December 1915 – 7 May 2004) was a French paediatrician, and arguably the French physician who most influenced neonatology in the 20th century. He was born and died in Paris.
He was the son of the eminent medical philosopher, Eugene Minkowski and the psychiatrist, Françoise Minkowska. They were Polish Jewish doctors who became naturalised French citizens after World War I and settled in France. They kept up their links with their ancestral Poland.
His son is the orchestral conductor Marc Minkowski.

Pierre_Deniker

Pierre Deniker (16 February 1917, in Paris – 17 August 1998) was involved, jointly with Jean Delay and J. M. Harl, in the introduction of chlorpromazine (Thorazine), the first antipsychotic used in the treatment of schizophrenia, in the 1950s. Thorazine had been used in surgical procedures peri-operatively as an anti-nausea medication in France. Patients were noted to be less anxious and calmer. This observation eventually led Deniker to try chlorpromazine with patients who had schizophrenia, where he observed notable improvement in symptoms.
The pharmaceutical company Smith-Kline had purchased the chlorpromazine rights from Rhone-Poulenc in France and had been marketing it as an anti-nausea medication. After Deniker's observations, they sought and received FDA approval in 1954 to market Thorazine for the treatment of schizophrenia.

Charles_Lasègue

Ernest-Charles Lasègue (5 September 1816 – 20 March 1883) was a French physician that released over one hundred scientific papers. He became recognized in the mid-19th century from his work in the fields of psychiatry and neurology. He published many of his works in a journal called Archives Générales de Médecine (Archives of General Medicine), in which he was an editor. A few of his major contributions consisted of his work with delusions of persecutions, a concept coined "folie à deux," and his description of hysterical anorexia. Aside from his publications, he worked various jobs before becoming the Chair of Clinical Medicine at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. He remained positioned there until dying at the age of 66 due to complications from diabetes.

Alain_Bombard

Alain Bombard (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ bɔ̃baʁ]; Paris, 27 October 1924 – Paris, 19 July 2005) was a French biologist, physician and politician famous for sailing in a small boat across the Atlantic Ocean without provision. He theorized that a human being could very well survive the trip across the ocean without provisions and decided to test his theory himself in order to save thousands of lives of people lost at sea.He was a Member of the European Parliament from the Socialist Party for France from 1981 to 1994.