Antoine Louis (; 13 February 1723,

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand ...

– 20 May 1792) was an 18th-century French

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

and

physiologist Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemica ...

. He was originally trained in medicine by his father, a sergeant major at a local military hospital. As a young man he moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, where he served as ''gagnant-maîtrise'' at the Salpêtrière. In 1750 he was appointed professor of physiology, a position he held for 40 years. In 1764 he was appointed lifetime secretary to the

Académie Royale de Chirurgie An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

. Louis published numerous articles on surgery, including several biographies of surgeons who died in his lifetime. He also published the surgical

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by ...

s of Dutch physician

Herman Boerhaave Herman Boerhaave (, 31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738Underwood, E. Ashworth. "Boerhaave After Three Hundred Years." ''The British Medical Journal'' 4, no. 5634 (1968): 820–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20395297.) was a Dutch botanist, ...

(1668–1738). Louis is credited with designing a prototype of the

guillotine A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at t ...

. For a period of time after its invention, the guillotine was called a ''louisette''. However, it was later named after French physician Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814), whose advocacy of a more humane method of

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

prompted the guillotine's design. The "angle of Louis" is another name for the

sternal angle The sternal angle (also known as the angle of Louis, angle of Ludovic or manubriosternal junction) is the synarthrotic joint formed by the articulation of the manubrium and the body of the sternum. The sternal angle is a palpable clinical landma ...

, which is the point of junction between the

manubrium The sternum or breastbone is a long flat bone located in the central part of the chest. It connects to the ribs via cartilage and forms the front of the rib cage, thus helping to protect the heart, lungs, and major blood vessels from injury. S ...

and the body of the sternum.

Works and publications

* ''Réfutation de l'écrit des médecins, intitulé la subordination des chirurgiens aux médecins, démontrée par la nature des deux professions, & par le bien public'', 1748, 32 p
Texte intégral
* ''Addition à l'examen des plaintes des médecins de province, présentées au roy par la Faculté de Médecine de Paris'', 1749, 11 p
Texte intégral
* ''Éloge de M. Petit. Prononcé à la séance publique de l'Académie royale de chirurgie. Le mardi 26 mai 1750'', 1750, 2 p. * ''Lettres sur la certitude des signes de la mort : où l'on rassure les citoyens de la crainte d'être enterrés vivans : avec des observations tdes expériences sur les noyés'', Michel Lambert (Paris), 1752, 376 p
Texte intégral
* ''Lettre sur les maladies vénériennes, dans laquelle on publié la manière de préparer le mercure dont la plus forte dose n'excite point de salivation'', Michel Lambert (Paris), 1754, 12 p
Texte intégral
* ''Mémoire sur une question anatomique relative à la jurisprudence; dans lequel on établit les principes pour distinguer, à l'inspection d'un corps trouvé pendu, les signes du suicide d'avec ceux de l'assassinat'', P. G. Cavelier (Paris), 1763, 54 p.
Texte intégral
et . * ''Parallèle des différentes méthodes de traiter la maladie vénérienne'', François Changuion (Amsterdam), 1764, 290 p.
Texte intégral
* ''Recueil d'observations d'anatomie et de chirurgie, pour servir de base a la théorie des lésions de la tête, par contre-coup'', P. G. Cavelier (Paris), 1766, 270 p.
Texte intégral
* ''Éloge de M. Bertrandi, associé étranger de l'académie royale de chirurgie, chirurgien de Sa Majesté le roi de Sardaigne, professeur d'Anatomie & de chirurgie en l'Université de Turin'', P. Guillaume Cavelier (Paris), 1767, 63 p.
Texte intégral
* ''Dictionnaire de chirurgie, communiqué à l'Encyclopédie'', Saillant & Nyon (Paris), 1789, 2 vol. : # tome premie
Texte intégral
# tome secon
Texte intégral
* ''Mémoire sur l'opération du bec-de-lièvre, où l'on établit le premier principe de l'art de réunir les plaie'', in-12, 69 p. . * ''Éloges lus dans les séances publiques de l'Académie royale de chirurgie de 1750 à 1792'', par Antoine Louis, recueillis & publiés par E. Frédéric Dubois (d'Amiens), Paris : Baillière & fils, 185

Bibliography

* Pierre Sue : « Discours historique sur la vie et les ouvrages du citoyen Louis », éance publique de l'Académie de Chirurgie du 11 avril 1793 Croullebois (Paris), 32, 1793, p. 10-73
Texte intégral
* Georges Sauvé : « Un cours de médecine d'Antoine Petit en 1768 », in : ''Histoire des Sciences médicales'', 1988, 22 (3-4), pp. 237–248 iubbcv
Texte intégral
* Antoine Jacques Louis Jourdan : « Louis (Antoine) », in: ''Dictionaire Des Sciences Médicales - Biographie Médicale'', Panckoucke(Paris), t.6, 1824, p. 113-12
Texte intégral
* Metz, documents généalogiques, 1561-1792, Poirier. * Henri Tribout de Morembert : ''Documents généalogiques du Pays Messin et de la Lorraine de Langue Allemande, 1630-1830'', Saffroy, 1935, 159 p. * ''Biographies médicales et scientifiques'', VIIIe siècle(Jean Astruc, Antoine Louis, Pierre Desault, Xavier Bichat), éditions Roger Dacosta, 1972. * Michel Porret : « Calas innocent : les preuves par la science, in : ''L'Histoire'',323, septembre 2007, 69-73.

External links

Antoine Louis
notice bio-bibliographique dans le site de l

Antoine Louis
dans la Banque d'images et de portraits de l

dans la sit
La médecine à Nancy depuis 1872

Œuvres numérisées d'Antoine Louis
dans le sit

@

Who Named It ''Whonamedit?'' is an online English-language dictionary of medical eponyms and the people associated with their identification. Though it is a dictionary, many eponyms and persons are presented in extensive articles with comprehensive bibliograp ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Louis, Antoine Physicians from Metz 1723 births 1792 deaths 18th-century French physicians French military doctors French physiologists French surgeons Members of the French Academy of Sciences Contributors to the Encyclopédie (1751–1772)