Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1980

ALFRED FOURNIER (1832-1914) De l'ataxie locomotrice d'origine syphilitique. G. Masson 1882 [4] 396 pp. 22.6 cm.

Fournier, one of the greatest syphilologists of the nineteenth century, made many contributions to the study and understanding of the nature of syphilis. He also made noteworthy advances in dermatology and in the study of gonorrhea and chancroid. A Parisian by birth, Fournier graduated from the University of Paris Medical School in 1860, having written his thesis on the contagiousness of syphilis. He served an internship under Ricord (see No. 1621 ff.), was physician to the Hôpital du Midi, and in 1863 became physician of the Central Bureau of Hospitals and professor agrégé of the Faculty of Medicine. He served as instructor at the Hôtel Dieu and in 1868 was appointed chief of service at the Lourcine Hospital. In 1876 Fournier became physician to the Hôpital St. Louis where he remained until 1902 when he reached retirement age. Fournier had an enormous clinical practice and was still able to find time to write over 150 articles and 15 books. He described the symptoms of secondary syphilis, outlined the role of syphilis in producing aneurysms, and provided descriptions of nasocranial osteitis, recurrent roseola, syphilitic sarcocele, tertiary glossitis, gumma of the pharynx and soft palate, and syphilitic phthisis. Fournier was very interested in syphilitic infections of the nervous system and wrote several books on this subject as well as two landmark papers on the syphilitic origin of general paresis. He was conservative in treating syphilis and relied heavily on various forms mercury as well as the iodides. Fournier was an active supporter of public health measures related to the prevention of venereal diseases and also wrote several pamphlets and brochures for the general public. A thirty page pamphlet under the same title as the present work was published by Fournier in 1876, but this is the first edition to consolidate a great part of his work on tabes dorsalis. In the work Fournier described thirty cases of tabes, in which syphilis was shown to be present in twenty-four of the cases. During Fournier's day it was believed that locomotor ataxia had a special predeliction for persons already predisposed to hereditary syphilis but he pointed out that it was also found in patients who had no family history of the disease. This was one of several works by Fournier that helped establish the relationship between tabes and syphilis. His work is particularly remarkable because Fournier's conclusions had to be based only on clinical observation, the cause of syphilis not yet having been identified.

See Related Record(s): 1621

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 4782 (1st ed., 1876); Waller 3152

Gift of John Martin, M.D.