Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1323

GUILLAUME DUPUYTREN (1777-1835) Mémoire sur une manière nouvelle de pratiquer l'opération de la pierre. J.-B. Baillière 1836 [4] 50 pp., 10 plates, tables. 61.3 cm.

Dupuytren was born and grew to maturity during a time when his nation was undergoing great change. The French medical profession endured the revolutionary storm and went on to lead the world in developing laboratory and clinical medicine in the nineteenth century. This was also true in the field of surgery and Dupuytren rose from poverty and obscurity to become one of the most eminent surgeons of the pre-Listerian period. Born in a small village in west-central France, his family was impoverished and could provide very little support for his medical studies. Nevertheless, Dupuytren persevered and rose to become professor of operative medicine and surgery at the Hôtel Dieu. Dupuytren's chief at the Hôtel Dieu was Philippe-Jean Pelletan (1747-1829) and their relationship was difficult because of the great dissimilarities in their personalities. It may have been as a result of this strained relationship that Pelletan mismanaged two cases which resulted in death for the patients. Pelletan was removed as chief surgeon in 1815 and Dupuytren was appointed in his place, where he ruled supreme until his death. Many achievements in anatomy, physiology, pathology, and surgery may be credited to Dupuytren. He invented an enterotome to be used in making an artificial anus, was one of the first to drain brain abscesses and remove the neck of the uterus when it was cancerous. He was one of the early surgeons to successfully excise the lower jaw and successfully treat torticollis by surgical intervention. He made an extensive study of gunshot wounds, tuberculosis, and anthrax and his studies of burns resulted in his developing a new way to classify them. He substituted ligation for amputation in fractures complicated by aneurysm and was a leader in successfully ligating the external iliac, subclavian, and carotid arteries. He devised operative techniques for extracting cataracts, treating hydroceles, repairing rectovaginal and rectovesical fistulae, and performing dacryocystorhinostomy. The majority of Dupuytren's publications were prepared by his assistants and published in French medical periodicals. The many lectures he delivered at the Hôtel Dieu were collected by his pupils and published at Paris between 1830 and 1834. Lithotomy was among Dupuytren's lifelong medical interests and both his first and last works were devoted to that subject. Lithotomie, published at Paris in 1812, was his winning thesis in the competitive examination held that year for the chair of operative medicine and surgery at the Hôtel Dieu. The present work enjoyed two editions and was also translated into German. Published posthumously, it was completed and edited by Joseph Louis Sanson (1790-1841) and Louis Jacques Bégin (1793-1859). In the work, Dupuytren reviews his experiences in excising stones from the bladders of 356 patients. Although he discusses the complications and dangers of lithotomy in detail, he must have been a highly successful surgeon, for only sixty-one of his patients died. Eight of the ten superbly engraved plates illustrate the surgical anatomy of the male perineal region and the other two depict lithotomes.

Gift of John Martin, M.D.