Joseph Forlenze

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Joseph-Nicolas-Blaise Forlenze,
portrait by Jacques Antoine Vallin

Joseph-Nicolas-Blaise Forlenze (born February 3, 1757 in Picerno , Italy , † July 22, 1833 in Paris , France ; born as Giuseppe Nicolò Leonardo Biagio Forlenza ) was an Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon . He is known as one of the most important ophthalmologists of the 18th and 19th centuries. He was particularly known in France for his cataract operations during the First Empire .

Life

Forlenze was born in Picerno ( Basilicata , then part of the Kingdom of Naples ) into a family of doctors. His parents were Felice and Vita Pagano. His father Felice and his uncles Sebastiano and Giuseppe were handcraft surgeons from the noble Capece Minutolo family from Ruoti . After studying his Catechism on Ruoti, he moved to Naples , where he began studying surgery. In France he continued this under Pierre-Joseph Desault , with whom he befriended, and whose collaborator he was in the joint anatomy studies .

Forlenze then moved to England , where he spent two years, and expanded his knowledge at St George's Hospital in London , then under the direction of John Hunter . He also traveled to the Netherlands and Germany . After returning to France, he started working as an ophthalmologist. He differentiated between various eye diseases and depicted them using wax masks .

In 1797, in the presence of a committee from the institute and some members of the government as well as French and foreign scientists, he performed an eye operation in a nursing home in Paris . In 1798 he became a surgeon at the Hôtel des Invalides and Hôtel-Dieu (Paris) , where he performed many remarkable operations.

Forlenze healed soldiers from Napoleon's army who returned from the Egyptian expedition with serious eye diseases. He also healed well-known figures such as Jean-Étienne-Marie Portalis , Minister for Religious Affairs , and the poet Ponce Denis Lebrun , for whom he restored the sight of an eye that had been covered by a cataract for twelve years . Lebrun dedicated a verse to him in his ode called Les conquêtes de l'homme sur la nature (man's conquest of nature). With a royal decree, Napoleon appointed him "chirurgien oculiste of the Lyceen, the hospices and all free welfare services of the empire". As a result, Forlenze was sent to the provinces to practice as an ophthalmologist.

His achievements spread to Italy , where he operated for free in cities such as Turin and Rome . In Rome he healed Cardinal Doria and was publicly honored by Caroline de Bourbon . His work Considérations sur l'opération de la pupille artificielle (1805) is valued as one of the most important medical works of the time. Forlenze died on July 22, 1833 of a stroke in the Café de Foy in Paris, where he often spent his evenings.

Fonts

  • Considérations sur l'opération de la pupille artificielle , 1805
  • Notice sur le développement de la lumière et des sensations dans les aveugles-nés, à la suite de l'opération de la cataracte , 1817

to honor

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rabbe, Sainte-Preuve, Biographie universelle et portative des contemporains , Chez l'éditeur, 1836, p. 1721.
  2. ↑ O lyre, ne sois pas ingrate!
    Qu'un doux nom dans nos vers éclate
    Brillant comme l'astre des cieux!
    Je revois sa clarté première;
    Chante l'art qui rend la lumière;
    Forlenze a dévoilé mes yeux.
    Joseph Fr. Michaud, Louis Gabriel Michaud, Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne , Michaud frères, 1838, p. 263.
  3. ^ Jan Ellen Goldstein, Console and Classify. The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth Century , Chicago Press, 2002, p. 63.
  4. ^ Salvatore De Renzi, Storia della medicina Italiana, Volume 5 , Filiatre-Sebezio, 1848, p. 430.
  5. ^ Almanach royal pour l'an MDCCCXXX , Testu et cie, 1830, p. 283

literature

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Forlenze, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Forlenze, Joseph-Nicolas-Blaise (full name); Forlenza, Giuseppe Nicolò Leonardo Biagio (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1757
PLACE OF BIRTH Picerno , Italy
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1833
Place of death Paris , France