Alphonse François Marie Guérin (; August 9, 1816 – February 21, 1895) was a French surgeon who was a native of

Ploërmel Church Saint-Armel Ploërmel (; ; Gallo language: ''Pieurmè'') is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany, in north-western France. On 1 January 2019, the former commune Monterrein was merged into Ploërmel. Character of the town T ...

. He studied medicine in Paris, and in 1850 became a surgeon of Parisian hospitals. During his career, he practiced surgery at the Lourcine,

Cochin Kochi ( , ), formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of Kerala. The city is also commonly referred to as Ernaku ...

Hôpital Saint-Louis Hôpital Saint-Louis () is a hospital in Paris, France. It was built in 1611 by architect Claude Vellefaux at the request of Henry IV of France. It is part of the Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris hospital system, and it is located at 1 a ...

and

Hôtel-Dieu In French-speaking countries, a hôtel-Dieu () was originally a hospital for the poor and needy, run by the Catholic Church. Nowadays these buildings or institutions have either kept their function as a hospital, the one in Paris being the oldest an ...

. In 1868 he became a member of the French Académie Nationale de Médecine. In 1870, Guérin introduced the practice of using cotton-wool bandages for prevention of wound infections. He described a horizontal

fracture Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress (mechanics), stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacemen ...

of the

maxilla In vertebrates, the maxilla (: maxillae ) is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The two maxil ...

immediately above the

teeth A tooth (: teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tear ...

and

palate The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sep ...

, that is known today as a " Le Fort I fracture", or sometimes as a "Guérin fracture".

Associated eponyms

He was a specialist in

urologic Urology (from Greek οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and ''-logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of the urinary system and the reproductive organs. Org ...

surgery, and has a handful of

genitourinary The genitourinary system, or urogenital system, are the sex organs of the reproductive system and the organs of the urinary system. These are grouped together because of their proximity to each other, their common embryological origin and the us ...

terms that contain his name: * " Guérin's glands": Today referred to as periurethral glands, or as

Skene's glands In female human anatomy, Skene's glands or the Skene glands ( , also known as the lesser vestibular glands or paraurethral glands) are two glands located towards the lower end of the urethra. The glands are surrounded by tissue that swells with ...

. * "Guérin's sinus": The lacuna magna; a

diverticulum In medicine or biology, a diverticulum is an outpouching of a hollow (or a fluid-filled) structure in the body. Depending upon which layers of the structure are involved, diverticula are described as being either true or false. In medicine, t ...

or cul-de-sac behind Guérin's valve (fold of navicular fossa). * "Guérin's valve": Fold or valve of mucous membrane in the navicular fossa.

Writings

* ''De la fièvre purulente'', (doctoral thesis) Paris, 1847. * ''Eléments de chirurgie opératoire, ou traité pratique des opérations''. Paris, 1855; fourth edition, Paris, Lauwereyns, 1870. * ''Maladies des organes génitaux externes de la femme. Leçons cliniques sur les maladies des organes génitaux internes de la femme''. Paris, Vve. A. Delahaye & Cie. 1878.Who Named It
(bibliography)

References

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 ...

External links

* 1816 births 1895 deaths People from Ploërmel French surgeons Scientists from Brittany {{France-med-bio-stub