Dominique Jean Larrey

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Dominique Jean Larrey, portrait of Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson

Dominique Jean Larrey , also (Baron) Dominique-Jean Larrey (born July 8, 1766 in Beaudéan ( Hautes-Pyrénées ), † July 25, 1842 in Lyon ), was a French military doctor and surgeon .

Life

Dominique Jean Larrey was born into a modest family as the son of a shoemaker. After his father's death, he grew up with his uncle Alexis Larrey, who was the chief surgeon at a hospital in Toulouse. Dominique Jean studied at the Universities of Toulouse and Paris . From 1787 he worked as a surgeon in the royal navy. He took part as a ship's doctor ("Ober-Schiffswundarzt") in the expeditions with the frigate Vigilante to Newfoundland , where the local fishing establishments were to be protected. From 1792 he served in the Rhine Army , made it up to the Oberfeldscher in the Great Army of Napoleon I and also became his personal physician .

Engraving after the portrait by Girodet-Trioson

As a field surgeon, he mainly dealt with military developments. In 1793, for example, as a first-class surgeon in Luckner's army, he introduced his idea of ​​the "  Ambulance volante  " (German: "Fliegende Lazarette ") and organized field hospitals in India and Egypt . In 1796 he was appointed professor at the School of the Military Hospital Val-de-Grâce . He is considered to be the creator of a completely new war surgery . Before Larrey, military surgery consisted of field hospitals that came to the wounded much too late and often could only collect the corpses and the dying. Larrey went out into the field. His helpfulness and devotion were legendary and earned him the greatest respect from all sides. The further development of medical methods, e.g. B. resections and amputations , is thanks to him. He had the idea of ​​using muscles that were left behind after an amputation for the voluntary movement of a hand prosthesis (such an artificial hand was constructed in the 19th century by the technician and dentist Peter Baliff and realized for patients after the First World War by Ferdinand Sauerbruch ). In 1810 he published his three books, Surgical Memories, in Paris .

On March 4, 1794, he married the painter Marie-Élisabeth Laville-Leroux, the youngest daughter of René Laville-Leroux , briefly Minister of Finance under Louis XVI. His son Félix Hippolyte was born on September 18, 1808 and became a military surgeon.

Napoleon on February 11, 1808 visiting a hospital, painting by Alexandre Veron-Bellecourt

On February 12, 1812, Larrey was appointed chief surgeon for the Russian campaign . He was ordered to Magdeburg, where he met the chief physician of the army, Baron Desgenettes . From there he traveled to Berlin, where he held an operation course in front of Prussian doctors, in which Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland , personal doctor of the Prussian king, Johann Goercke , at the time surgeon general of the Prussian army, the chief doctor of the Prussian army Wibel and other doctors took part. According to his own statements, he amputated 200 arms and legs after the Battle of Borodino .

While retreating across the Berezina , Larrey saved many wounded. In the chaos of the battle, Larrey, the Guard's surgeon, even crossed the bridge twice. His surgical tools were still on a cart on the east side and he personally picked up the cutlery, with which he would save many lives. The second time - first he had crossed the bridge with Napoleon's guards - he would not have crossed the bridge if many soldiers had not recognized him and helped him.

Pioneers in the construction of the temporary bridges over the Beresina, painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

On July 6, 1809 he was appointed baron by Napoleon. In September 1813, he refuted Soult's accusations of self-mutilation by young recruits. Napoleon then granted him a state pension. In Dresden he looked after the son of Blucher after his wounding. In the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , he lost the entire entourage of the ambulance when he withdrew, whereupon the death rate among French soldiers rose. After Napoleon's first exile, Larrey remained chief surgeon of the Guard. He experienced the battle of Waterloo as chief surgeon, Wellington instructed his artillery not to fire at the French field hospital right in the center of the battle. After the battle and all the wounded were taken care of, he was invited to dinner by Marshal Blücher. He was the only French soldier from the Revolutionary Wars to whom Napoleon, Blücher and Wellington paid tribute.

During the time of the Restoration , Larrey lost all offices and pensions from 1815 to 1817. He was rehabilitated by the king himself on April 9, 1818 and was again chief surgeon of the royal guard and head of the Hotel des Invalides. Napoleon bequeathed him 100,000 francs in his will in 1821 and once again describes him as the most virtuous man he has met. When Napoleon was reburied from Saint Helena to Paris on December 5, 1840, Dominique Larrey was one of the few companions who were still there, only three of the emperor's 26 marshals who were still alive: Jean-de Dieu Soult , Duke of Dalmatia, as Prime Minister, Nicolas Charles Oudinot , Duke of Reggio as Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor and Adrien Moncey and Duke of Conegliano as Governor of the Invalid Foundation.

Larrey with Napoleon

Dominique Jean Larrey died in 1842 after an inspection trip to Algeria that he had undertaken with his son Hippolyte.

Larrey in later years

Marshal Soult, his personal enemy, intrigued to prevent the burial in the Invalides, a late revenge for the defeat in the dispute over the alleged self-mutilation of young recruits in 1813, which Soult had falsely presented to the emperor.

Larrey was one of the first doctors to observe the local anesthetic effects of cold. After the Battle of Preussisch Eylau, which was fought in grim cold on February 7th and 8th, 1807, he performed amputations (at minus 19 ° C) without some of the injured uttering painful sounds. The sub-zero temperatures made the peripheral nerves of Larrey's patients largely insensitive to pain. He also observed that wounded people who were left on the battlefield had a greater chance of survival than those who were immediately sent to the hospital. The reason was maggots that settled in the wounds of untreated soldiers and killed many pathogens and thus prevented blood poisoning.

Larrey's "flying hospitals" were later copied by many other countries. One of his goals was to provide comprehensive aid to the injured enemy soldiers.

The "Larrey hernia " (disease) was named after Larrey . He also used the term shock for the first time to describe the symptoms associated with high blood loss. He had observed that soldiers who had received a blow (French choc ) in the stomach turned pale and cold sweat without any external injuries and eventually died. He found that they had died of internal bleeding, thus establishing the connection that soldiers with large external injuries did not die from the injuries themselves, but from the associated blood loss. He called it symptome de choque , shock symptoms , as they still say today.

“Larrey is the most honest man and the soldiers' greatest friend I have ever known. Vigilant and tireless in caring for the wounded, he was seen on the battlefield after an action, accompanied by a train of young surgeons, carefully investigating whether there was still any sign of life to be found in the bodies. In the harshest weather, night and day, he was seen among the wounded. He seldom allowed his assistants to rest for a moment. He plagued the generals and disturbed them on their beds at night whenever any order or help was needed for the wounded or sick. They all feared him because they knew he was ready to go to me at any moment and bring the complaint to me. He was the relentless enemy of the suppliers. "

- Napoleon Bonaparte

Larrey's son Félix Hippolyte (Baron) Larrey (1808–1895) became a military surgeon and personal physician to Napoleon III.

Honors

His name is entered on the triumphal arch in Paris in the 30th column. A bronze monument to Larrey by Pierre Jean David d'Angers stands in the courtyard of Notre-Dame du Val-de-Grâces church in Paris.

Monument to Larrey in the courtyard of Notre-Dame du Val-de-Grâce

In April 1806, a cape in Western Australia, then known as Terre de Witt in French , was named after Larrey.

From 1806 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1812 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . In 1822 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1829 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences in Paris. In what was then a residential area of ​​the French military in Berlin-Tegel there is a rue Dominique Larrey.

Fonts (selection)

literature

chronological, foreign language

Fiction

Web links

Commons : Dominique Larrey  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Bergell, K. Klitscher: Larrey, ... , p. 18 ff.
  2. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff : That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; cited: Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, pp. 185–193.
  3. ↑ Pierre Vayre: Les Larrey. ... , p. 31
  4. ↑ Pierre Vayre: Les Larrey. ... , p. 34
  5. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Larrey, Félix Hippolyte Baron. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 826.
  6. ↑ Peter Bergell, K. Klitscher: Larrey, ... , p. 102 ff.
  7. ↑ Peter Bergell, K. Klitscher: Larrey, ... , p. 78
  8. ^ Nathan D. Jensen: Doctor Dominique-Jean Larrey. In: French Empire. Nathan D. Jensen, January 2017, accessed May 2, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Reinhart T. Grundmann: Dominique-Jean Larrey. "Revolutionary" surgeon in Napoleon's service. In: medical history. 3/2011.
  10. ^ WU Eckart : Doctors Lexicon. Springer, Heidelberg 2006. doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-540-29585-3
  11. ↑ Pierre Vayre: Les Larrey. ... , p. 211
  12. ↑ Pierre Vayre: Les Larrey. ... , p. 272
  13. ^ Rudolf Frey , Otto Mayrhofer , with the support of Thomas E. Keys and John S. Lundy: Important data from the history of anesthesia. In: R. Frey, Werner Hügin , O. Mayrhofer (Ed.): Textbook of anesthesiology and resuscitation. Springer, Heidelberg / Basel / Vienna 1955; 2nd, revised and expanded edition. With the collaboration of H. Benzer. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 1971. ISBN 3-540-05196-1 , pp. 13–16, here: p. 14.
  14. ^ MA Rauschmann: The pain and its therapy in the mirror of the time. In: The orthopedist. No. 37, Oct. 2008, pp. 1007-1015.
  15. ^ Kai Kupferschmidt: Medicines from maggots . In: Der Tagesspiegel . December 14, 2009 ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed June 14, 2019]).
  16. ^ Wilhelm Ebstein: The diseases in the campaign against Russia (1812). Published by Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart 1902.
  17. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Larrey, Félix Hippolyte Baron. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 826.
  18. ^ Johann Jakob Egli : Nomina geographica. Language and factual explanation of 42,000 geographical names of all regions of the world. 2nd Edition. Friedrich Brandstetter, Leipzig 1893, p. 526
  19. ^ Members of the previous academies. Dominique Jean Baron Larrey. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on April 22, 2015 .
  20. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 30, 2019 .
  21. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter L. Académie des sciences, accessed on January 8, 2020 (French).
  22. ↑ Rue Dominique Larrey. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  23. ↑ Review: 117./118./119. Supplementary sheets of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung , October 1819, column 929 ff. Digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3DYxw4AAAAMAAJ~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3DPA929~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D
personal data
SURNAME Larrey, Dominique Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French military doctor and surgeon
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Beaudéan , France
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1842
Place of death Lyon , France