94 Biographical Account of [Aug. 



the slightest weakness. During an agony of eight days he 

 remained completely master of himself. Each instant of 

 his life during this painful and tedious martyrdom, seemed 

 miraculous to those who were near him. Death appeared 

 to hesitate to strike so great a victim, and to destroy an 

 organization which nature had so strongly moulded." 

 Notwithstanding his great capacity for diagnosis, Dupuytren 

 remained long in doubt of the presence of fluid in his chest, 

 and when he was convinced of the fact, he considered that 

 the liquid was contained in cysts. This was the reason 

 why he refused to undergo an operation, twelve days 

 before his death, when urged to it by M. Sanson. Until 

 the fourth day previous to his death he entertained a spark 

 of hope. Sometimes even he believed his health re-esta- 

 blished. Nature at length entirely failed, and the dis- 

 tinguished Baron breathed his last on the morning of the 

 8th of February, 1835, about half-past 3.=^ 



If distinction as a surgeon depends upon original inven- 

 tion, as in the cases of Pare, Franco, Hunter, and Pott, 

 then Dupuytren cannot lay claim to it ; but he was an excel- 

 lent clinical professor, and has made a great many good 

 surgeons who are distributed over different parts of the 

 world. He has endeavoured to simplify the study of 

 surgery by making it less mechanical, and at the same time 

 more successful .f He wrote papers upon different profes- 

 sional subjects. 



1. Surgery. — The memoir of Dupuytren upon the artifi- 

 cial anus constitutes his principal scientific work. It forms 



* Dupuytren possessed a remarkably fine person and strong constitution. The 

 decline of his health was sudden, and unexpected by his friends, and, therefore, 

 the more painful to them. By his physical strength and mental power he seemed 

 predestined to a green old age. He could go through immense bodily exertion ; 

 his mind was ever active ; and, up to a recent period, he had scarcely known a 

 day's illness. The cause, the great cause of his fall, was an extremely irritable 

 temper. This was a source of unceasing mental suflFering, and his nervous 

 system, at last, gave way under it. This was his great misfortune ; for, after the 

 death of such a man, we say misfortune rather than fault. It made him insup- 

 portably capricious and inconsistent, and often impelled him to rash and wrong 

 acts, which, on reflection, in cooler moments, he would fain have recalled. 



t He is said to have left his daughter, Madame de Beaumont, a fortune of nearly 

 7,000,000 of francs, (about £296,000), and, besides, 20,000 (£ 8,333) to found 

 a Professorship of Medico — Chirurgical Pathology ; and 300,000 (£ 12,500) for a 

 House of Retirement for Twelve Superannuated Medical Men. — Edit. 



