Pierre Joseph Martin Rollet or Martin-Pierre-Joseph Rollet (12 November 1824 – 2 August 1894) was a French surgeon, venereologist and dermatologist who served as a professor of hygiene at the Faculty of Medicine in Lyon. He was the first to separate

chancroid Chancroid ( ) is a bacterial sexually transmitted infection characterized by painful sores on the genitalia. Chancroid is known to spread from one individual to another solely through sexual contact. However, there have been reports of accidenta ...

and indurated syphilitic

chancre A chancre ( )-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa .... Related to the English "canker", they both come from the Latin ''cancer'', meaning "crab",

and established that the incubation period for

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...

was three weeks. Rollet was born in

Lagnieu Lagnieu (; ) is a commune in the Ain department in eastern France. Geography Lagnieu is located in the south of the department of Ain, on the right bank of the Rhone, 50 km northeast of Lyon and 37 km south of Bourg-en-Bresse. Th ...

, son of a postmaster. He was sent to the Meximieux seminary at the age of nine and then went to the Royal College of Lyon before going to study medicine at the Medical School in Lyon. He then transferred to Paris. He became an intern in 1845 at the

Beaujon Hospital The Beaujon Hospital () is located in Clichy, Paris, France and is operated by APHDP. It was named after Nicolas Beaujon, an eighteenth-century French banker. It opened in 1935 and was designed by Jean Walter. In 2023, the project to merge t ...

under

Stanislas Laugier Stanislas Laugier (28 January 1799 – 15 February 1872) was a French surgeon and medical doctor. He was the brother of astronomer Paul Auguste Ernest Laugier (1812-1872). He was associated with the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, a member of the Institut a ...

. He hoped to become a surgeon at Hôtel Dieu but finally was admitted to the École de Antiquaille in 1850. He however joined service only in 1855, practicising in own clinic on rue Claudio in dermato-venerology for five years. In the nine years that he served, he specialized in syphilis. He was able to demonstrate that

Philippe Ricord Philippe Ricord (10 December 1800 – 22 October 1889) was a French physician. Biography Philippe Ricord was born on 10 December 1800 in Baltimore. His father had escaped the French Revolution in 1790 from Marseille. He met French naturalist ...

had confounded two diseases, the infection caused by a combination of ''

Treponema pallidum ''Treponema pallidum'', formerly known as ''Spirochaeta pallida'', is a Microaerophile, microaerophilic, Gram-negative bacteria, gram-negative, spirochaete bacterium with subspecies that cause the diseases syphilis, bejel (also known as endemic ...

'' and ''

Haemophilus ducreyi ''Haemophilus ducreyi'' are fastidious gram-negative coccobacilli bacteria. This species causes the sexually transmitted disease chancroid, a major cause of genital ulceration in developing countries characterized by painful sores on the geni ...

'', and true syphilis. In 1877 he was appointed to the chair of hygiene at the newly founded Faculty of Medicine at Lyon. Rollet married Jullieron, daughter of notary Roanne in 1855. They had a son who became an ophthalmologist and a daughter who in her second marriage wed Alexandre Lacassagne, a forensic medicine pioneer. Rollet was made

Knight of the Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil. Currently consisting of five classes, it was o ...

in 1864. Rollet died suddenly, he was to deliver a speech the next day while presiding over the Congress of Dermato-venerology in Lyon. He was buried at Beynost.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rollet, Joseph 1824 births 1894 deaths People from Lagnieu French venereologists