Abstract
IN a recent paper (Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 34, 239; 1941) on the life and times of Jean Nicolas Corvisart, after emphasizing the resemblance between the stirring events at the beginning of the nineteenth century and those at the present time, Dr. Halls Dally said that the genius of Laennec had almost eclipsed the glory of his teacher Corvisart, whom several biographers merely regarded as ‘First Physician to the Emperor Napoleon I’. Corvisart, however, had greater claims to medical fame. He rescued the art of percussion invented by Auenbrugger from oblivion, perfected it, and was the father of cardiology. His great work on diseases of the heart and great vessels, which was published in 1806, marks the beginning of the clinical study of cardiology. His numerous distinguished pupils and successors included Bichat, the founder of biology, Bretonneau who discovered diphtheria, Bouillaud who first described the cardiac manifestations of rheumatic fever, Dupuytren who created the school of clinical surgery and Cruveilhier, the celebrated anatomist and pathologist.
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Jean Nicolas Corvisart (1755–1821). Nature 148, 22 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/148022a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/148022a0