Guillaume Dupuytren
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
anatomist and military surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
. Although he gained much esteem for treating Napoleon Bonaparte's
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
hemorrhoids, he is best known today for Dupuytren's contracture
Dupuytren's contracture
Dupuytren's contracture , is a fixed flexion contracture of the hand where the fingers bend towards the palm and cannot be fully extended...
which is named after him and which he described in 1831.
Birth and education
Guillaume Dupuytren was born in the town of Pierre-BuffièrePierre-Buffière
Pierre-Buffière is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.-Geography:The village lies on the left bank of the Briance, which flows westward through the northern part of the commune....
in the department of Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne is a French department named after the Vienne River. It is one of three departments that together constitute the French region of Limousin.The chief and largest city is Limoges...
.
He studied medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
at the newly established École de Médecine and was appointed, by competition, prosector when only eighteen years of age. His early studies were directed chiefly to anatomical pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
. In 1803 he was appointed assistant surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu
Hôtel-Dieu de Paris
The Hôtel-Dieu de Paris is regarded as the oldest hospital in the city of Paris, France, and is the most central of the Assistance publique - hôpitaux de Paris hospitals. The hospital is linked to the Faculté de Médecine Paris-Descartes...
and in 1811 he became professor of operative surgery
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
in succession to Raphael Bienvenu Sabatier
Raphael Bienvenu Sabatier
Raphael Bienvenu Sabatier was a French anatomist and surgeon who was born in Paris.He studied medicine in Paris, and in 1756 became a professor at the Collège Royal de Chirurgie. Shortly afterwards, he became chief surgeon at the Hôtel des Invalides, and in 1795 was a professor at the École de Santé...
. In 1816 he was appointed to the chair of clinical surgery and became head surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu. He held this post until his death.
Practice
He visited the Hôtel-Dieu morning and evening, performing at each time several operations, lectured to vast throngs of students, gave advice to his outpatients, and fulfilled the duties consequent upon one of the largest practices of modern times. By his indefatigable activity he amassed a fortune, the bulk of which he bequeathed to his daughter, with the deduction of considerable sums for the endowment of the anatomical chair in the École de Médecine, and the establishment of a benevolent institution for distressed physicians. The most important of Dupuytren's writings is his Treatise on Artificial Anus, in which he applied the principles laid down by John HunterJohn Hunter (surgeon)
John Hunter FRS was a Scottish surgeon regarded as one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific method in medicine. The Hunterian Society of London was named in his honour...
. In his operations he was remarkable for his skill and dexterity, and for his great readiness of resource.
Dupuytren was one of the first surgeons to successfully drain a brain abscess
Brain abscess
Brain abscess is an abscess caused by inflammation and collection of infected material, coming from local or remote infectious sources, within the brain tissue...
using trepanation
Trepanation
Trepanning, also known as trephination, trephining or making a burr hole, is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases. It may also refer to any "burr" hole created...
, in which a hole is cut in the skull, and he also used the method to treat seizure
Seizure
An epileptic seizure, occasionally referred to as a fit, is defined as a transient symptom of "abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain". The outward effect can be as dramatic as a wild thrashing movement or as mild as a brief loss of awareness...
s.
He claimed credit for originally describing melanoma and claimed Laennec stole the idea from his lectures.
He died in Paris, and there with his bequest established the Musée Dupuytren
Musée Dupuytren
The Musée Dupuytren is a museum of anatomical items illustrating diseases and malformations. It is located at 15, rue de l'Ecole de Médecine, Les Cordeliers, Paris, France, and open weekdays except holidays and university vacations...
.
In fiction
The surgeon Desplein, in Balzac's short story "The Atheist's Mass," is based on Dupuytren.Dupuytren's success at draining a cerebral abscess is referred to in Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
's Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
"not Dupuytren, about to open up an abscess through a thick encephalic layer" (Part Two, Chapter 11).
Dupuytren is mentioned as a youthful acquaintance of Stephen Maturin in The Surgeon's Mate
The Surgeon's Mate
The Surgeon's Mate is a historical novel written by Patrick O'Brian and set during the Napoleonic Wars. It is the seventh book in the Aubrey–Maturin series.-Plot summary:...
by Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian, CBE , born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and centred on the friendship of English Naval Captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen...
. Walking past his former student lodgings, Maturin comments, "Dupruyten lived just below... we used to share our corpses."
External links
- Catholic Encyclopedia article
- Baron Guillaume Dupuytren. WhoNamedIt.
- Baron Guillaume Dupuytren History of Surgeons - surgeons.org.uk
- On the injuries and diseases of bones by Guillaume Dupuytren (1847)
- Lesions of the Vascular System, Diseases of the Rectum, and other surgical complaints by Guillaume Dupuytren (1854)