Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière
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Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière (March 19, 1803 – April 28, 1876) was a Swiss-born French manufacturer of surgical instruments. Charrière was born in Cerniat, in the Canton of Fribourg,
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. He moved to Paris at age 13, and was apprenticed to a manufacturer of knives. In 1820, he founded a company manufacturing surgical instruments, which quickly grew to 400 employees by around 1840, and was world-famous by his death. He became a naturalized French citizen in 1843. He developed and improved a number of instruments, especially hypodermic needles and
catheter In medicine, a catheter ( ) is a thin tubing (material), tube made from medical grade materials serving a broad range of functions. Catheters are medical devices that can be inserted in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgical procedure. ...
s; the
French catheter scale The French scale, also known as the French gauge or Charrière system, is a widely used measurement system for the size of catheters. It is commonly abbreviated as Fr but may also be abbreviated as Fg, FR or F, and less frequently as CH or Ch (re ...
is named after his work. In order to achieve this, Charrière benefitted from at the time newly developed materials such as nickel silver, stainless steel, and rubber. Several of his apprentices also became well-known instrument makers, including Georges-Guillaume-Amatus Lüer, Louis-Joseph Mathieu, and Adolphe Collin in Paris; Josef Leiter in Vienna; and Camillus Nyrop in
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
. He was inducted into the Legion of Honour in 1851, and died in 1876 in Paris.


Measuring unit

His name is used as a measuring unit for the outer
diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the centre of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest Chord (geometry), chord of the circle. Both definitions a ...
and the general size of urological instruments, endoscopes and catheters for various purposes (1 Charrière = 1 mm outer circumference ~ 1/3 mm outer diameter). In English-speaking countries, the name "Charrière" was found difficult to pronounce. Thus, the term "French" was rapidly adopted in its stead. This is now generally used as a measuring unit for medical catheters and introducers (1 French = 1/3 mm).


Further reading

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Charriere, Joseph Frederic Benoit 1803 births 1876 deaths 19th-century French inventors Swiss emigrants to France