Octave Roch Simon Terrillon (17 May 1844, Oigny-sur-Seine – 22 December 1895,

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 ...

) was a French physician and

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

, known as a pioneer of

aseptic surgery Asepsis is the state of being free from disease-causing micro-organisms (such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses, pathogenic fungi, and parasites). There are two categories of asepsis: medical and surgical. The modern day notion of asepsis is deri ...

. From 1868 he worked as a hospital interne in Paris, where in 1873 he received his medical doctorate. In 1876 he qualified as a hospital surgeon, and eventually became associated with the Salpêtrière Hospital. In 1878 he became an associate professor at the faculty of medicine in Paris. On April 13, 1957, a French

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...

featuring a portrait of Dr. Terrillon was issued. Included on the stamp were images of a microscope, an

autoclave An autoclave is a machine used to carry out industrial and scientific processes requiring elevated temperature and pressure in relation to ambient pressure and/or temperature. Autoclaves are used before surgical procedures to perform steriliza ...

and some surgical instruments. Somewhere around 1882 he advocated the procedure of using boiling water, a heat sterilisation technique for disinfecting surgical instruments.

Selected works

* ''Leçons de clinique chirurgicale professées à la Salpêtrière'', 1889 – Lessons taught in the surgical clinic at the Salpêtrière. * ''Traité des maladies du testicule et de ses annexes'' (with Charles Monod), 1889 – Treatise on testicular diseases. * ''Asepsie et antisepsie chirurgicales'' (with Henri Chaput), 1894 – Surgical

asepsis Asepsis is the state of being free from disease-causing micro-organisms (such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses, pathogenic fungi, and parasites). There are two categories of asepsis: medical and surgical. The modern day notion of asepsis is deri ...

and

antisepsis An antiseptic ( and ) is an antimicrobial substance or compound that is applied to living tissue to reduce the possibility of sepsis, infection, or putrefaction. Antiseptics are generally distinguished from ''antibiotics'' by the latter's abili ...

. * ''Salpingites et ovarites'', 1891 –

Salpingitis Salpingitis is an infection causing inflammation in the fallopian tubes (also called ''salpinges''). It is often included in the umbrella term of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), along with endometritis, oophoritis, myometritis, parametritis ...

and ovaritis.Most widely held works by Octave Roch Simon Terrillon
WorldCat Identities

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Terrillon, Octave 1844 births 1895 deaths Academic staff of the University of Paris People from Côte-d'Or French surgeons