Pierre Adolphe Piorry (31 December 1794 – 29 May 1879) was a French physician born in

Poitiers Poitiers is a city on the river Clain in west-central France. It is a commune in France, commune, the capital of the Vienne (department), Vienne department and the historical center of Poitou, Poitou Province. In 2021, it had a population of 9 ...

. He invented pleximetry (a method for the investigation of internal organs using

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

) and was the creator of medical terms

toxin A toxin is a naturally occurring poison produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms. They occur especially as proteins, often conjugated. The term was first used by organic chemist Ludwig Brieger (1849–1919), derived ...

, toxemia and

septicemia Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage of sepsis is followed by suppression of the immune system. Common signs and s ...

. He studied medicine in

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 ...

, where his instructors included

Jean-Nicolas Corvisart Jean-Nicolas Corvisart-Desmarets (15 February 1755 – 18 September 1821) was a French physician. Born in the village of Dricourt (now in Ardennes), Corvisart studied from 1777 at the Ecole de Médecine in Paris, later qualifying as ''docte ...

(1755–1821), Gaspard Laurent Bayle (1774–1816),

François Broussais François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis. People with the given name * François Amoudruz (1926–2020), French resistance fighter * François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire; 1 ...

(1772–1838), and

François Magendie __NOTOC__ François Magendie (6 October 1783 – 7 October 1855) was a French physiologist, considered a pioneer of experimental physiology. He is known for describing the foramen of Magendie. There is also a ''Magendie sign'', a downward ...

(1783–1855). While still a student he was part of the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

in Spain. In 1816 he earned his doctorate with a thesis titled ''Du danger de la lecture des livres de médecine par les gens du monde'' (On the danger of reading medical text books by the laity). He became a member of the Paris Medical Society on 2 March 1819, and was a member of the ''

Académie Nationale de Médecine Situated at 16 Rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the Académie nationale de médecine (National Academy of Medicine) was created in 1820 by King Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the institu ...

'' since its inception (1820). He later became an esteemed professor of medicine at the Charité, Pitié, and Hôtel Dieu of Paris. In 1832 he was appointed to the Salpétrière, where he conducted clinical lectures.
Pierre Adolphe Piorry (1794-1879): pioneer of percussion and pleximetry. Thorax 1979;34:575-581

René Laennec René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (; 17 February 1781 – 13 August 1826) was a French physician and musician. His skill at carving his own wooden flutes led him to invent the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hôpital Necker. ...

's invention of the

stethoscope The stethoscope is a medicine, medical device for auscultation, or listening to internal sounds of an animal or human body. It typically has a small disc-shaped resonator that is placed against the skin, with either one or two tubes connected t ...

(1816) and his publication of ''De l' Auscultation Médiate'' (1819) inspired Piorry to make an analogous contribution to the science of medical

. In 1826 Piorry introduced the pleximeter (''le plessimétre''), a device used to help delineate internal organs, of which he described in his 1828 treatise ''De la Percussion Médiate''. He published works on numerous aspects of medicine, and had some success as a poet. One of his better known

poems Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

was ''Dieu, L'Ame et la Nature'' (1853). Piorry thought that

diabetics Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of the ...

lose weight because of the amount of

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

they lose through urine. His suggestion was for diabetics to consume large quantities of sugar. His dangerous advice caused a death and was discredited as a diet treatment.Bliss, Michael. (2007). ''The Discovery of Insulin''. University of Chicago Press. p. 23.

References

* Sakula, A
Pierre Adolphe Piorry (1794-1879): pioneer of percussion and pleximetry
''Thorax'', 1979; 34: 575-581

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Piorry, Pierre 1794 births 1879 deaths 19th-century French physicians People from Poitiers 19th-century French writers 19th-century French poets French male poets 19th-century French male writers