( From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie
Velpeau (May
18,
1795 -
August 24,
1867)
was a French
anatomist and
surgeon who was born in a village near
Tours.
He was a student and assistant to
Pierre Bretonneau (1778-1862). During his early medical
career he was a surgeon in several hospitals in
Paris.
In 1833 Velpeau succeeded
Alexis de Boyer (1757-1833) as chair of clinical surgery at
the
University of Paris, a position he maintained until his
death in 1867.
Ramón Emeterio Betances --Puerto
Rican pro-independence leader, surgeon and
Légion d'honneur laureate-- was one of Velpeau's prominent
students.
[1]
Velpeau was a skilled surgeon
and renowned for his knowledge of surgical anatomy, and he
published over 340 titles on
surgery,
embryology,
anatomy,
obstetrics, et al. In 1830 he published an important book on
obstetrics, titled Traité elementaire de l’art des
accouchements. Also, in 1827 Velpeau was the first physician
to describe
acute myeloid leukemia.
The eponymous Velpeau bandage
that is used for arm support is named after him. There are
several other eponyms regarding Velpeau. However, they are now
primarily used for historical purposes only; these include:
Velpeau hernia for the
femoral hernia, Velpeau's disease for
hidradenitis suppurativa, Velpeau's canal for the
inguinal canal and Velpeau's fossa which is the
ischiorectal fossa.
Despite being one of the top
surgeons in his time, Velpeau believed that pain-free surgery
was a fantasy, and that surgery and pain were inseparable. With
the advent of anaesthetics such as
ether
and
chloroform in the 1840's, Velpeau was amazed, saying "On
the subject of ether, that it is a wonderful and terrible agent,
I will say of chloroform, that it is still more wonderful and
more terrible"
MEDIZINA OPERATORIA von VELPEAU ( ca. 1850 ) :
