Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 866

JEAN BASEILHAC (1703-1781) Recueil de pieces importantes sur l'operation de la taille. Chez D'Houry fils 1751 ix [3] 258 [6] 34 [2] pp. 16.5 cm.

Baseilhac initially studied medicine and surgery with his father and uncle who was surgeon to the Hôtel Dieu in Lyons. He later became a student at the Hôtel Dieu in Paris and entered the practice of medicine. After the death of his noble patron in 1728, Baseilhac entered the Feuillants, a reformed branch of the Cistercian Order, and became known as Frère Côme. He devoted himself to practicing lithotomy among the poor and performed thousands of operations at St. Honoré Hospital in Paris as well as throughout the country. He performed many suprapubic operations and developed a sonde à dard to aid in that operation. He favored the lateral operation and devised the lithotome caché that had a retractable blade for entering the bladder in an attempt to overcome the difficulties of that operation. Frère Côme was a controversial figure and his results were viewed with suspicion by many in the medical community. The present work contains a description of his instrument and its use as well as many letters from contemporary surgeons. Le Cat (see No. 851 ff.) was one of his chief critics and many of his letters are included in the book. Also included with the work is his Suite du Recueil de toutes les piéces qui ont été publiées au sujet du lithotome caché (Paris, 1752) which summarizes the results of forty additional case histories.

See Related Record(s): 851

Gift of John Martin, M.D.