681 



DUPUYTREN, BARON. 



DURAN, DON AQU3TIN. 



633 



occurrence of death amongst the workmen has been prevented. In 

 his researches on this subject he was assisted by Thenard the chemist, 

 who was his intimate friend. Thenard also assisted him at this time 

 in some researches upon the nature of diabetes mellitus. Although 

 the surgeon and the chemist arrived at no satisfactory conclusions with 

 regard to this disease, they observed and recorded many important 

 facts. The result of their investigations was published in the 'Bulletin' 

 for 1806. 



In the year 1803 the office of assistant-surgeon at the Hotel- 

 Dieu was given to Dupuytren after examination by public concours. 

 In 1811 Sabatier died, who had long filled the chair of surgery with 

 the highest reputation. The coneours for this office took place in 

 1812, when Dupuytren, Roux, Tartra, and Marjolin were the candi- 

 dates. The examination consisted of written replies to certain surgical 

 and anatomical questions, a defence by each of the candidates of his 

 own particular positions, operations upon the dead body, and a thesis. 

 Dupuytren was successful. The subject of the thesis was the operation 

 of lithotomy. That presented by Dupuytren was published in Paris, 

 with the title ' De la Lithotomie : These pre'sente'e au Concours pour 

 la Chaire de Me'deciue Ope'ratoire,' 4to. In 1815 he was transferred 

 to the chair of cliuical surgery, which he held till his death. In 

 1818 he was advanced to the post of senior surgeon to the Hotel- 

 Dieu. 



Although it would be difficult to point out a single department of 

 surgery or morbid anatomy on which the views, opinions, and 

 observations of Dupuytren are not known, yet he has left no record 

 of these in works written by himself. During the twenty years how- 

 ever that he held the office of professor of clinical surgery at the 

 Hfitel-Dieu, his lectures were published in the various French medical 

 periodicals, and many courses have been also published in the English 

 medical periodicals. A collection of them was published in Paris 

 by a society of young medical men, under the title ' Lecons Orales 

 de Clinique Chirurgicale, faites a 1'Hotel-Dieu de Paris, par M. le Baron 

 Dupuytren, recueillies et publie'es par une Socie"te de Medecius,' 1832, 

 8vo. This work extended to four volumes, and embraces the views 

 of Dupuytreu ou most of the important points of surgery. His views 

 on morbid anatomy have been fully given by Koche and Sanson in 

 their great work on medico-chirurgical pathology, entitled ' Nouveau 

 Kli'inens de Pathologie Medico-Chirurgicale,' 5 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1833. 

 In the ' Udpertoire d'Auatomie ' of Breschet and Royer-Collard, and 

 the ' Me'deciue Ope'ratoire de Sabatier ' of Sanson and Beguin, the 

 surgical and pathological views of Dupnytren have found faithful 

 reporters. 



The improvements introduced by Dupuytren in the treatment of 

 surgical diseases were always founded on his great anatomical and 

 pathological knowledge, and modern surgery owes much of its success 

 to his exertions. One subject to which he turned his attention was 

 artificial anus, and he proposed an operation in this painful state which 

 has been perfectly successful. On this subject he presented a memoir 

 from his own hand to the Acadcmie Royale de Me"decine. It was 

 published under the title ' Me'moire Bur une Mdthode Nouvelle pour 

 trailer les Anus Accidentels.' Besides this, and the papers before 

 referred to, the following subjects on which he wrote are amongst those 

 which have distinguished him both as a pathologist and surgeon : 

 On the Nerves of the Tongue; on the Motions of the Brain ; on the 

 Function of Absorption; ou the Influence of the Eighth Pair of 

 Nerves ; on Amputation of the lower Jaw-bone ; on the Ligature of 

 Arteries ; on Fracture of the Fibula ; on Congenital Dislocations ; on 

 Retraction of the Fingers. 



lu the department of practical surgery he was eminently successful; 

 be possessed almost entire control over his feelings ; and with great 

 anatomical knowledge, accuracy of perception, and perfect steadiness 

 of manipulation, his operations were regarded as the most successful 

 of the surgical staff of the Parisian hospitals. His presence of mind 

 never forsook him, and the difficulties and accidents which must 

 sometimes occur in operative surgery were always made subservient 

 to the instruction and guidance of the pupils. During his career as 

 an operative surgeon ho invented many instruments. Amongst these 

 is the enterotome, with which the operation for artificial anus is 

 performed, and which has rescued many victims from the grave. 

 Other instruments of his invention are a double-bladed bistoury, for 

 the bilateral operation for stone in the bladder ; a cataract-needle ; a 

 compressor in cases of hemorrhage; a porte-ligature ; and others. 



His performance of his duties, as surgeon and clinical teacher, was 

 remarkable. Although he had one of the largest private practices in 

 Europe, and accumulated through it probably the largest fortune ever 

 made by a medical man, he never neglected his public duties. He 

 spent from four to five hours every morning in visiting his patients 

 at the Hotel-Dieu, performing operations, making post-mortem examin- 

 ations, giving clinical instruction, and in consultations. Every evening 

 he returned to the hospital at six, for the purpose of visiting the worst 

 cases and performing urgent operations. These severe duties he never 

 intermitted even during sickness, and when suffering from attacks of 

 disease. These labours however at last told upon even his iron con- 

 stitution, and in November 1833 he first gave symptoms of decay. 

 On the 5th of that month he was seized with a slight attack of 

 apoplexy, which lasted only a short time, but left behind it a difficulty 

 of speaking, as well as an inclination of the mouth towards tho right 

 BICKI. DIV. VOL. IL 



side. He still continued his duties at the H6tel-Dieu, but his friends 

 at last persuaded him to make a journey to Naples. He remained in 

 that city till May 1834. He resumed his visits and lectures at the 

 hospital, and struggled on till February 1835. He died on the 8th of 

 the same month. He retained his intellectual faculties to the last, 

 and, aware of his approaching end, wished that the medical paper 

 might bo read to him the evening before he died, " in order," as he 

 observed, " that he might carry the latest news of disease out of the 

 world." He however repudiated the suggestion that he was a sceptic 

 in religion, and received, previous to his death, the last sacrament of 

 the Roman Catholic Church. 



In his will he left the bulk of his enormous fortune, amounting to 

 280.000Z. to an only daughter. He also left 20t>,000 francs for the 

 purpose of endowing a chair of pathological anatomy. This sum being 

 found larger than was necessary to endow merely the chair, a certain 

 portion of the income has been appropriated to maintaining in con- 

 nection with the chair, a museum of pathological anatomy, which is 

 called the Muse'e Dupuytren. He left his body, to be carefully 

 examined, to his two friends Messrs. Broussais and Cruveilhier, who 

 published a minute account of the post-mortem examination. He was 

 buried in the cemetery of . Pere-la-Chaise, on the 10th of February. 

 The funeral was attended by all the professors of the faculty, and 

 deputations from the Academy of Medicine and the Institute, and the 

 funeral car was drawn by students from the church to the tomb. 

 Orations were delivered at the grave by Messrs. Orfila, Larrey, 

 Bouillaud, Royer-Collard, and Tessier. 



Although Dupuytren will ever be remembered as a clever and a 

 brilliant operative surgeon, it is not on this that his reputation rests. 

 It was the scientific character that he gave to his cliuical instruction 

 that placed him far above those who had preceded him, and which led 

 to the cultivation of surgery upon principles founded on physiological 

 and pathological inquiries, rather than ou rules founded on the 

 practice and authority of previous writers. If he left no great works 

 by which to judge of the value of his labours, he yet raised up a body 

 of enlightened practitioners of surgery iu France, who in their 

 numerous writings have ever been anxious to acknowledge Dupuytreu 

 as their master. His personal character commanded little respect and 

 won no esteem ; he was cold, cynical, selfish, and intolerant. 



(Lancet, vol. i. 1834-35; Eloge du Baron O. Dupuytren, par E. 

 Pariset; Revue Medicale, 1835; Callisen, Medicinisckes Sckriftsteller 

 Lexicon ; and notices of Dupuytren by Salgues, Vidal de Cassis, Brive 

 de Boismont, Cruveilhier, Bardinet, &c.) 



'DURAN, DON AQUSTIN, a Spanish critical and miscellaneous 

 writer of great influence and reputation, was born at Madrid towards 

 the close of the 18th century; we are not told by his biographers iu 

 what year, but as he was admitted to practice as au advocate in 1817, 

 and the legal age for such admission is iu Spain fixed at twenty-four, 

 the date of his birth cannot be later than 1793. He lost his mother 

 early ; his father, who was physician to the royal family, was unable 

 to send him to the usual places of education on account of his ill- 

 health, to which he was from childhood n martyr. At Vergara, to 

 which he was sent for the benefit of the country air, he went through 

 a course of reading such as his own pleasure dictated, the old romances, 

 the story of the Cid, and the comedies of Calderon and Moreto, and 

 when he returned to Madrid he had completely forgotten what Latin 

 and mathematics he had learned. He was also such a firm believer 

 in ghosts that, to cure him, his father found it necessary to mak<- him 

 go through the discipline of attending a course of dissections. Under 

 the guidance of Manuel Quintana, the poet, and Alberto Lista, the 

 literary historian, both friends of the elder Duran, and both, till very 

 lately, still living friends of the younger, he soon recovered his lost 

 ground, and if we may believe his Spanish biographers, made such 

 progress in metaphysics as to " comprehend easily the works of Kant 

 and his disciples," but as in the last work that Duran has published he 

 avows himself to be utterly unacquainted with German, their state- 

 ments seem to require modification. Though admitted an advocate 

 he never appears to have pursued the law, but to have occupied him- 

 self with politics and literature. In 1821 he obtained an appointment 

 in the " Direccion general de estudios," or department of public instruc- 

 tion, which he lost in consequence of his political opinions being of a 

 liberal cast, on the French invasion of 1823 ; in 1834 he was named 

 secretary of the board for the inspection of printing-houses, and soon 

 afterwards one of the secretaries of the national library at Madrid. In 

 the 'Galeriade Espafioles Celebres,' it is said that he was the principal 

 librarian, but this appears to be a mistake; in the 'Catalogo del 

 Museo de Antiguedades,' by Castellanos de Losada, himself au official of 

 the library, it is stated that the then principal librarian was Patiuo, 

 author of ' El Bibliotecario,' and that Duran, who was dismissed for 

 political causes in 1840 and re-appointed in 1843, is now the elder 

 librarian (Bibliotecario decano) and second in rank, the first being 

 Breton de los Herreros, the noted dramatist. 



The first work by which Durau became known was his essay ' On 

 the influence which modern criticism has exercised on the decliue of 

 the Spanish drama, and the manner in which that drama ought to 

 be considered to form a proper estimate of its peculiar merits,' Madrid, 

 1828. In this production, which contained much that was novel to 

 the Spanish reader, but much that was otherwise to those acquainted 

 with tho writings of Schlegel. Duran, who had for a short time been 



2; 



