People from Laon

Suzanne Blanche Gros Noël (1878–1954), also known as Madame Noël, was one of the world’s first plastic surgeons and the first female plastic surgeon in the world. She was known for her efficient face lift technique, the “petite operation.” Noël was also a very active feminist, a philosophy which was considered radical for a practicing cosmetic surgeon. She is the founder of Soroptimist International of Europe (SIE) and had a career spanning from 1916 to 1950.
At the outbreak of the war in 1914, without having been able to defend her doctoral thesis, like all the interns, Suzanne Gros was allowed to practise medicine in the city. She then joined Professor Morestin at the Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris. In 1916, she trained in the techniques of reparative and corrective surgery. From there, under extremely precarious conditions, she participates in the war effort by operating on the “broken mouths”, the wounded in the face.

Nestor Louis François Gréhant (2 April 1838 in Laon – 26 March 1910) was a French physiologist.
In 1864 he received his medical doctorate in Paris, where he later earned a doctorate in natural sciences (1870). He served as a préparateur to Claude Bernard at the faculty of sciences in Paris, and subsequently became director of the laboratory of general physiology at the École pratique des Hautes Études. In Paris, he also served as a professor of physiology at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. In 1905 he became a member of the Académie de médecine.He is best remembered for his studies of blood and blood circulation (measurement of cardiac output in animals) and respiration. He also made contributions in his research of the nervous system, of muscle activity, toxicology, anaesthesia and experimental hygiene. He developed a number of devices that he used in research, including a grisoumètre (firedamp detector) that was still in use in coal mines up until 1950.