Jean Joseph Emile Létiévant (1830 in Marboz (Ain Department),

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

s – 1884) was a French surgeon remembered for drawing the first aesthesiography.

Biography

Jean Joseph Emile Létiévant studied medicine in

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. In 1858, he became a medical doctor with his thesis: "Trauma in child-birth compared to ordinary trauma; followed by the relation between an epidemic of puerperal metro-peritonitis at the Lyons Maternity Hospital in 1858". From 1861 to 1865, he was head of the Surgical Clinic at the Lyons Medical School. In 1867, he was appointed head surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Lyons. In 1873, he also became assistant professor of anatomy and physiology. From 1858 to 1880, Létiévant published a book and forty articles. The French Academy of Science awarded him the sum of one thousand francs for his treatise on nervous sections. ''The treatise of nervous sections'' is a 548-page book which mentions 226 references in five languages: Latin, French, English, Italian, and German. Létiévant had not only read

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...

and

Ambroise Paré Ambroise Paré (; – 20 December 1590) was a French barber surgeon who served in that role for kings Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. He is considered one of the fathers of surgery and modern forensic pathology and a pione ...

, but

Paul Broca Pierre Paul Broca (, also , , ; 28 June 1824 – 9 July 1880) was a French physician, anatomist and anthropologist. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that is named after him. Broca's area is involve ...

Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard FRS (8 April 1817 – 2 April 1894) was a Mauritian physiologist and neurologist who, in 1850, became the first to describe what is now called Brown-Séquard syndrome. Early life Brown-Séquard was born at Port ...

, and even Silas Weir Mitchell. Two of the main topics of this treatise are: 1. Aesthesiography (from the Greek: aisthêsis) a new concept proposed by Létiévant, is a map of the incomplete anaesthesia which "facilitates the interpretation" of the cutaneous nerve lesions. Létiévant presents nine illustrations drawn by himself. 2. Tingling sign. Létiévant had already observed that pressure over the

median nerve The median nerve is a nerve in humans and other animals in the upper limb. It is one of the five main nerves originating from the brachial plexus. The median nerve originates from the lateral and medial cords of the brachial plexus, and has cont ...

at the site of the repair or at a point distal to the repair, caused painful tingling in the fingers. It was then, in 1915, correctly interpreted as

Tinel's sign Tinel's sign (also Hoffmann-Tinel sign) is a way to detect irritated nerves. It is performed by lightly tapping ( percussing) over the nerve to elicit a sensation of tingling or "pins and needles" in the distribution of the nerve. Percussion is us ...

. In 1869, Létiévant, at several meetings of the medical society in Lyons, asked his colleagues their opinion on the possibility of repairing a radial nerve transsection. He repaired it on 4 August.Létiévant, E. Phénomènes physiologiques et pathologiques consécutifs à la section des nerfs du bras. Lyon médical, 1869,3:150-164, 225-243, 298-320, planches I à VI At Létiévant’s funeral, his pupil, friend and successor at the Hôtel-Dieu as head surgeon, Daniel Mollière said: "Saying goodbye to this great soul who has just entered into eternity, let us write on his tomb these two words from the Book of Revelations, which define him so well: FIDELIS ET VERAX".

References

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