Selections from the clinical works of Duchenne / Translated and edited by G.V. Poore.

  • Duchenne, G.-B. (Guillaume-Benjamin), 1806-1875.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selections from the clinical works of Duchenne / Translated and edited by G.V. Poore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    A SHORT SKETCH LIFE AND WRK OF DUCHENNE (DE BOULOGNE) * Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne was born at Boulogne- sur-Mer, on September 17th, 1806. His family bad lived at Boulogne since about the middle of the eighteenth century, and he ever retained for his native town an affection which was truly filial. His mind, his character, and his features, all marked his Boulognese descent. Below the middle height, thickset, active in movement, slow of speech, and retaining to the last some of his provincial accent, his appearance recalled his father, Jean Duchenne, a sea-captain of Boulogne. He was educated at the local college, whence he went to pursue his studies at Douai, and at the age of 19 he was admitted Baccalaureat-es-lettres on the same day as his friend and schoolfellow Dr. C. Gros, to whose lot it fell, half a century later, to deliver his funeral oration. His youth was passed without incidents which call for any remark. From Douai he went to Paris to study medicine, and in 1831 he returned to Boulogne to pursue the practice of his profession. His graduation thesis was an Essai sur la brulure (35 pp. 4to. Paris, 1831). About the year 1833 he seems to have tried the effect of electro-puncture of the muscles on a patient under his care, and this operation (in which he was assisted by his friend * For most of the facts in this brief memoir the Editor is indebted to a notice by Laseque and Straus which appeared in the Archives Generales de Medecine for December, 1875. Certain other facts have been found scattered through the writings of Duchenne, and in various short biographical notices of him which appeared at the time of his death in French and English journals. a