Jean-Nicolas Corvisart

File:Jean-Nicolas Corvisart.jpg

Jean-Nicolas Corvisart (15 February 1755 – 18 September 1821) was an important figure in the history of French medicine.

Born in the French village of Dricourt (now in Ardennes) in 1755, Corvisart translated Leopold von Auenbrugg's Inventum Novum from Latin into French. Corvisart was especially fond of Auenbrugg's use of chest percussion as a diagnostic tool, and began to perfect the technique.

From 1777 he studied at the Ecole de médecine in Paris, later qualifying as docteur régent of the Faculté de Paris (1782). In 1797, Corvisart began to teach at the Collège de France, where he gained a reputation as an expert in cardiology.

In 1804, Corvisart became the primary physician of Napoléon Bonaparte, who he continued to attend to until Bonaparte's exile to St. Helena Island, October 1815. In 1820 he was made a member of Académie Nationale de Médecine. He died the following year at Courbevoie.

Selected writings

• Cours élémentaire de matière médicale: suivi d'un précis de l'art de formuler, Volume 1 (with Louis Desbois de Rochefort) 1793 - Basic course of materia medica.
• Essai sur les maladies et les lésions organiques du cœur et des gros vaisseaux, 1806 (with C. E. Horeau), translated into English by Jacob Gates as " An essay on the organic diseases and lesions of the heart and great vessels" (1812).
• Nouvelle methode pour reconnaitre les maladies internes de la poitrine par la percussion de cette cavité, 1808 - New method to recognize diseases of the internal chest by percussion of the cavity, (French translation of Leopold Auenbrugger's Latin book on medical percussion).

External links

• Journal List >Heart >v.78(1); Jul 1997 >PMC484851 Jean Nicolas Corvisart (1755-1821). M. K. Davies and A. Hollman