Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 865

JOSEPH LIEUTAUD (1703-1780) Historia anatomico-medica. Apud Vincent 1767 Vol. I: xlviii, 540 [4] pp.; Vol. II: xvi, 606 [4] pp. 25.6 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 863

Lieutaud received his medical degree from Aix and did postgraduate work at Montpellier. He returned to serve as professor of anatomy at Aix and, with the help of Sénac (see No. 823), became chief physician to King Louis XV in the early 1770s and later performed similar duties for King Louis XVI. Lieutaud was deeply interested in and promoted the basic fundamental aspects of medicine in his teaching and practice. He also felt that physicians should place their greatest emphasis on observation and practice rather than in theory and speculation. As a result of his beliefs regarding medical practice he devoted considerable effort to postmortem examinations. He used the results of his work in the study of both normal and pathological anatomy, striving to determine the relationships between the postmortem findings and the dead individual's symptoms. His clinical practice included inoculation against smallpox and he made many reports to the Académie Royale des Sciences on such subjects as hydatids of the thyroid; hydrocephalus; laryngeal polyps; empyema of the frontal sinus; pathological anatomy of the heart, stomach, and spleen; osteoma of the posterior fossa; and pathology of the gall bladder. In the present work, edited by Antoine Portal (1742-1832), he reports on his postmortem findings in over 3500 autopsies. In an extensive index in Volume II, Lieutaud relates symptomatology to his postmortem findings.

See Related Record(s): 823

Cited references: Osler 3239; Waller 14075 (French ed., 1776-77); Wellcome III, p. 516

Gift of John Martin, M.D.