, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 – March 7, 1874 in Sussac

Sussac

Sussac is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.Also a local tourist resort offering lake, beach, play area and other amenities....

) was a French anatomist and pathologist.

In 1816 he earned his doctorate in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where in 1825 he succeeded Pierre Augustin Béclard

Pierre Augustin Béclard

Pierre Augustin Béclard was a French anatomist who was a native of Angers. He was the father of physiologist Jules-Auguste Béclard....

 (1785–1825) as professor of anatomy

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

. In 1836 he relinquished the chair of anatomy to Gilbert Breschet

Gilbert Breschet

Gilbert Breschet was a French anatomist who was born in Clermont-Ferrand. He studied medicine at the University of Paris, and in 1812 was conferred as doctor of medicine in Paris...

 (1784–1845), and became the first occupant of the recently founded chair of pathological anatomy. In 1836 he was elected to the Académie de Médecine, becoming its president in 1839. For over forty years he was president of the Société anatomique. Puerto Rican pro-independence leader, surgeon and Légion d'honneur

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

 laureate, Ramón Emeterio Betances

Ramón Emeterio Betances

Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán was a Puerto Rican nationalist. He was the primary instigator of the Grito de Lares revolution, and as such, is considered to be the father of the Puerto Rican independence movement...

, was one of his prominent students.

Cruveilhier was a highly influential anatomist, and made important contributions in his studies involving the nervous system

Nervous system

The nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...

. He described the pathology of neuronal lesions observed in what today is known as multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...

, publishing his findings and illustrations in 1842. He was also the first to record the clinical history of a patient who had the disease. However, it wasn't until 1868 that multiple sclerosis was discovered by neurologist

Neurologist

A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...

 Jean-Martin Charcot

Jean-Martin Charcot

Jean-Martin Charcot was a French neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology. He is known as "the founder of modern neurology" and is "associated with at least 15 medical eponyms", including Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...

 to be a distinct, separate disease.

He also performed extensive studies on inflammation

Inflammation

Inflammation is part of the complex biological response of vascular tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. Inflammation is a protective attempt by the organism to remove the injurious stimuli and to initiate the healing process...

 of blood vessels, particularly phlebitis

Phlebitis

Phlebitis is an inflammation of a vein, usually in the legs.When phlebitis is associated with the formation of blood clots , usually in the deep veins of the legs, the condition is called thrombophlebitis...

, which he believed was the overall cause of most inflammations. Cruveilhier was a prolific writer, among his works were Anatomie pathologique du corps humain (1829–1842) and Vie de Dupuytren (Life of Dupuytren, 1840), which was a memorial to his teacher, Guillaume Dupuytren

Guillaume Dupuytren

Guillaume Dupuytren, Baron was a French anatomist and military surgeon. Although he gained much esteem for treating Napoleon Bonaparte's hemorrhoids, he is best known today for Dupuytren's contracture which is named after him and which he described in 1831.- Birth and education :Guillaume...

.

His name is associated with Cruveilhier's sign

Cruveilhier-Baumgarten bruit

The Cruveilhier-Baumgarten bruit is a clinical sign which can be found in Cruveilhier-Baumgarten disease. In this condition there are prominent umbilical and paraumbilical veins; auscultation over these vessels may reveal a humming sound ....

 (persistent hypertension

Hypertension

Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...

 and occlusion of the portal vein) and Cruveilhier-Baumgarten disease

Cruveilhier-Baumgarten disease

Cruveilhier-Baumgarten disease or Pégot-Cruveilhier-Baumgarten disease is a rare medical condition in which the umbilical or paraumbilical veins are distended, with an abdominal wall bruit and palpable thrill, portal hypertension with splenomegaly, hypersplenism and oesophageal varices, with a...

 (cirrhosis

Cirrhosis

Cirrhosis is a consequence of chronic liver disease characterized by replacement of liver tissue by fibrosis, scar tissue and regenerative nodules , leading to loss of liver function...

 of the liver without ascites

Ascites

Ascites is a gastroenterological term for an accumulation of fluid in the peritoneal cavity.The medical condition is also known as peritoneal cavity fluid, peritoneal fluid excess, hydroperitoneum or more archaically as abdominal dropsy. Although most commonly due to cirrhosis and severe liver...

), which is named along with anatomist Paul Clemens von Baumgarten

Paul Clemens von Baumgarten

Paul Clemens von Baumgarten was a German pathologist.He was the son of a physician, and was a pupil of Christian Wilhelm Braune and Ernst Leberecht Wagner in Leipzig, and Ernst Neumann . He received his doctorate in Leipzig on August 22, 1873...

. Cruveilhier's name is also associated with several parts of the anatomy, however these terms have largely been replaced by the modern anatomical nomenclature:

• Cruveilhier's fossa: scaphoid fossa
  Scaphoid fossa
  In the pterygoid processes of the sphenoid, above the pterygoid fossa is a small, oval, shallow depression, the scaphoid fossa, which gives origin to the Tensor veli palatini.-External links:*...
  
  
• Cruveilhier's fascia: superficial fascia of perineum
  Fascia of perineum
  The fascia of perineum is the Terminologia Anatomica term for the fascia which covers the muscles of the superficial perineal pouch...
  
  
• Cruveilhier's joint: median atlanto-axial joint
  Atlanto-axial joint
  The Atlanto-axial joint is of a complicated nature. It consists of no fewer than four distinct joints....
  
  
• Cruveilhier's plexus: posterior cervical plexus
  Cervical plexus
  The cervical plexus is a plexus of the ventral rami of the first four cervical spinal nerves which are located from C1 to C4 cervical segment in the neck. They are located laterally to the transverse processes between prevertebral muscles from the medial side and vertebral from lateral side...
  
  

Written Works

• Anatomie descriptive (1834–1836)
• Anatomie pathologique du corps humain (1829–1842), with over 200 copper plates illustrated by Antoine Chazal
  Antoine Chazal
  Antoine Chazal was a French painter of flowers and of portraits, as well as an engraver. He studied under Misbach, Bidauld, and Van Spaendonck, and became Professor of Iconography at the Jardin des Plantes. Besides portraits, flowers, and fruit, he painted a few landscapes and altar-pieces for...
  
  (1793–1854).
• Trait d'anatomie pathologique génerale (1849–1864)
• Anatomie du système nerveux de l'homme (1845)
• Traite d'anatomie descriptive (1851)

External links

• http://books.google.com/books?id=Mn0nLIvsYgAC&pg=PA894&lpg=PA894&dq=%22jean+Cruveilhier%22+phlebitis&source=bl&ots=b2BCVumjea&sig=XH2FjRyVlC-_jwnx4t0jZ6Pg-Sg&hl=en&ei=Wkz-SbSdNIHYMOrovMgE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#PPA894,M1 Outlines of the History of Medicine and the Medical Profession by Johann Hermann Baas and Henry Ebenezer Handerson