Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière

Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière

Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière (born March 19, 1803 in Cerniat, Switzerland , † April 28, 1876 in Paris ) was a Swiss- French instrument and apparatus manufacturer.

Charrière was Catholic and from 1843 had French citizenship. He was married to Madeleine Elisa Berrurier, the daughter of a meat dealer in Paris. Charrière had lived in Paris since he was 13 and, after an apprenticeship as a cutler, founded his own company for surgical instruments around 1820, which was known in specialist circles around 1845 and world famous when he died (over 400 employees in 1844). Charrière was promoted by the surgeon Guillaume Dupuytren , among others , and invented or improved numerous surgical instruments and apparatus that were distinguished by the quality of the material used ( steel , nickel silver , rubber ) and their ingenious mechanisms. Charrière became the teacher of several, later leading, specialist colleagues: ( Georges-Guillaume-Amatus Lüer , Louis-Joseph Mathieu and Adolphe Collin in Paris, Josef Leiter in Vienna , Camillus Nyrop in Copenhagen ). In 1851 Charrière became an officer in the Legion of Honor .

Unit of measurement

His name became the unit of measurement Charrière for the outer circumference and thus indirectly for the diameter of urological instruments, endoscopes and catheters for various purposes (1 Charr = 1 mm outer circumference ~ 1/3 mm outer diameter). Since his name could not be pronounced for many people in English-speaking countries, an alternative name was quickly found, namely "French" for French. This "alternative name" is used today as a unit of measurement for catheters and medical insertion aids (1 French = 1/3 mm)

literature

• Urs Boschung : Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière. In: Les Fribourgeois sur la Planète. The people of Freiburg around the world. Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire, Friborg, 1987, pp. 47-55.
• Urs Boschung: Charrière, Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît. 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. 238 f.