Auguste Gabriel Maurice Raynaud (10 August 1834 – 29 June 1881) was the French doctor who discovered Raynaud syndrome, a vasospastic disorder which contracts blood vessels in extremities and is the "R" in the CREST syndrome acronym, in the late 19th century.

Life and career

Maurice Raynaud was the son of a university professor. He commenced his medical studies at the

University of Paris The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), Metonymy, metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revo ...

with the help of his uncle, the well known Paris physician Ange-Gabriel-Maxime Vernois (1809–1877), and obtained his medical doctorate in 1862. He thus became one of the select few who have achieved eponymous fame with their doctoral dissertation, in his case: ''De l'asphyxie locale et de la gangrène symétrique des extrémités''. He became a holder of a '' Doctorat ès lettres'' the following year with the 48 page article "

Asclepiades of Bithynia Asclepiades ( el, Ἀσκληπιάδης; c. 129/124 BC – 40 BC), sometimes called Asclepiades of Bithynia or Asclepiades of Prusa, was a Greek physician born at Prusias-on-Sea in Bithynia in Anatolia and who flourished at Rome, where he pr ...

, doctor and philosopher", and the book "Medicine in

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

's time". Raynaud never received a senior position at any of the Paris hospitals, but became ''Médecine des hôpitaux'' (received hospital privileges) in 1865. At various times, he was attached to the hospitals of Hôtel Dieu (1866), Laboisière (1872), and Charité (1880), among others. In 1866 he became an agrégé with the works ''Sur les hyperhémies non phlegmasiques'' and ''De la revulsion'', which established him as a professor of medical pathology. He was made an officer of the Légion d’honneur in 1871 and elected to the ''

Académie de Médecine 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 philosop ...

'' in 1879, and lectured with great success at the

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

as well as the Lariboisière and Charité hospitals. Although Raynaud always wanted to hold the chair of medical history at the University of Paris, he died on 29 June 1881, in his prime, before achieving that goal, shortly before the International Medical Congress in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

that year. By the time of his death, Raynaud had suffered for several years from cardiac disease. At the London congress, Raynaud's paper, "Scepticism in Medicine, Past and Present", was read by one of his colleagues. He was also a busy writer. His book ''Sur la salive d'un enfant mort de la rage'' was the result of research done with Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) and Odilon Marc Lannelongue (1840–1911).

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* and named after {{DEFAULTSORT:Raynaud, Maurice 19th-century French physicians Physicians from Paris 1834 births 1881 deaths