Samuel Jean de Pozzi
Encyclopedia
Samuel-Jean Pozzi was a French
surgeon
and gynecologist. He was also interested in anthropology
and neurology
.
, Dordogne
to a family of Italian/Swiss descent. His father, Benjamin Dominique Pozzy, was a minister of the Reformed Church of France. His mother, Inés Escot-Meson died when Pozzi was ten, and his father married an Englishwoman, Mary Anne Kempe. Pozzi went to study first to Pau and then to Bordeaux
. Due to his handsome appearance and cultured demeanor, other pupils nicknamed him The Siren.
through a childhood friend, the famed actor Jean Mounet-Sully, and, according to historian and childhood friend Gustave Schlumberger
, they briefly became lovers yet remained lifelong friends afterwards.
When the Franco-Prussian War
erupted in 1870, Pozzi volunteered and became a medic
. Later he became one of the pupils of the neurologist Paul Broca
and as his assistant he worked with anthropology, neurology and comparative anatomy
. Pozzi graduated as a doctor in 1873. His thesis was of treatment of obstetric fistula
.
In 1874, Pozzi and Réné Benoit published a translation of Charles Darwin
's Expressions of Emotion in Humans and Animals.In 1875 Pozzi became a university teacher after his second thesis about using hysterotomy
for uterine fibroma.
In 1876, Pozzi traveled to Scotland to the Congress of the British Medical Association
to meet Joseph Lister
whose interest of antiseptics he supported. He later wrote the first French texts about the antiseptic methods. In 1877 Pozzi became chirurgien des hôpitaux
In 1879, Pozzi married Therese Loth-Cazalis, heiress of a railroad magnate, and had three children: Catherine, Jean, and Jacques. Pozzi did not appreciate the fact that his wife wanted her mother to live with them, a fact that made for a very unhappy marriage. Pozzi also had a number of romances, including those with the opera singer Georgette Leblanc
, the actress Rejane, the widow of Georges Bizet
, Sarah Bernhardt
, and Emma Sedelmeyer Fischof. Daughter of an art dealer and wife of a horse breeder, Fischof was a beautiful, cultured woman of Jewish heritage who became Pozzi's mistress in 1890. His wife refused to grant him a divorce
but Firschhof remained his companion for the rest of his life.
Pozzi went to study gynecological methods to Austria, Germany and Britain and became one of the pioneers of gynecology in France. He wrote a prominent textbook, Clinical and Operative Gynaecology, which was published 1890 and widely translated.
Pozzi gained a great reputation as a teacher. He preferred to make his rounds dressed in white overalls and wearing a black cap.
In 1881, Pozzi became a hospital surgeon, specializing in gynecological and abdominal surgery. The same year he also became an honorary member of Mirlitons and met the painter John Singer Sargent
. Sargent's 1881 portrait of Pozzi depicts him in a red dressing gown and is currently display at the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
In 1883, Pozzi was appointed surgeon at the Hôpital de Lourcine-Pascal. After 1884 he gave theoretical lectures in the hospital.
In 1888, he became a president of the Society of Anthropology - he had been a member since 1870. He traveled widely to supplement his knowledge.
Pozzi established the first Chair of Gynecology in Paris in 1884. In 1889 he performed the first gastroenterostomy
in France.
In 1896, Pozzi was elected to the French Academy of Medicine. In 1897 Pozzi was a co-founder of the ¨Revue de gynécologie et de chirurgie abdominale. In 1898 he commissioned painter Georges Clairin - probably because of their mutual friendship with Bernhardt - to paint a painting for the wall of his Hospital Lourcine.
In 1898, Sarah Bernhardt let only Pozzi operate her ovarian cyst
. In 1913 Pozzi and Georges Clemenceau
organized the first transplant
symposium in Paris.
In 1914, joined forces again when the First World War erupted and became a military surgeon. In 1915 Sarah Bernhardt called again and Pozzi arranged a colleague to amputate
her damaged leg.
and Robert Proust and Robert de Montesquiou
. In 1877 Pozzi also befriended poet Louise Ackermann when he asked her to teach him German. Salonniere Lydie Aubernon nicknamed him "the love doctor". Pozzi also corresponded with a feminist writer Augustine Bulteau. He also collected coins and statuettes.
In 1898 Pozzi was elected senator from Bergerac and represented his district for three years. He improved the water supply
and sewer
drainage of his town and was later involved with the restructuring of the French baccalaureate
exams. He did not seek re-election in 1902.
Pozzi also witnessed the second trial of Alfred Dreyfus
and supported the side of Emile Zola
who rightly believed that Dreyfus was innocent. In 1908 the ashes of Zola were transferred to the Pantheon and both Pozzi and Dreyfus were present. When the journalist Gregori shot at Dreyfus and wounded him on the arm, Pozzi rushed to his aid.
was unsuccessful. He asked to be buried in his military uniform and died shortly afterwards. Machu committed suicide later.
Pozzi was buried in the Protestant cemetery in Bergerac. He was survived by his diplomat son Jean de Pozzi and poet daughter Catherine de Pozzi.
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...
surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
and gynecologist. He was also interested in anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and neurology
Neurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
.
Life
Samuel-Jean Pozzy (he changed the spelling later) was born in BergeracBergerac, Dordogne
Bergerac is a commune and a sub-prefecture of the Dordogne department in southwestern France.-Population:-Economy:The region is primarily known for wine and tobacco...
, Dordogne
Dordogne
Dordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...
to a family of Italian/Swiss descent. His father, Benjamin Dominique Pozzy, was a minister of the Reformed Church of France. His mother, Inés Escot-Meson died when Pozzi was ten, and his father married an Englishwoman, Mary Anne Kempe. Pozzi went to study first to Pau and then to Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
. Due to his handsome appearance and cultured demeanor, other pupils nicknamed him The Siren.
Life and medical career
In 1864, Pozzi began to his study medicine in Paris. He also met Sarah BernhardtSarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
through a childhood friend, the famed actor Jean Mounet-Sully, and, according to historian and childhood friend Gustave Schlumberger
Gustave Schlumberger
Léon Gustave Schlumberger was a French historian and numismatist who specialised in the era of the crusades and the Byzantine Empire. His is still considered the principal work on the coinage of the crusades....
, they briefly became lovers yet remained lifelong friends afterwards.
When the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
erupted in 1870, Pozzi volunteered and became a medic
Combat medic
Combat medics are trained military personnel who are responsible for providing first aid and frontline trauma care on the battlefield. They are also responsible for providing continuing medical care in the absence of a readily available physician, including care for disease and battle injury...
. Later he became one of the pupils of the neurologist Paul Broca
Paul Broca
Pierre Paul Broca was a French physician, surgeon, anatomist, and anthropologist. He was born in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that has been named after him. Broca’s Area is responsible for articulated language...
and as his assistant he worked with anthropology, neurology and comparative anatomy
Comparative anatomy
Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny .-Description:...
. Pozzi graduated as a doctor in 1873. His thesis was of treatment of obstetric fistula
Obstetric fistula
Obstetric fistula is a severe medical condition in which a fistula develops between either the rectum and vagina or between the bladder and vagina after severe or failed childbirth, when adequate medical care is not available.-Symptoms and signs:The resulting disorders typically include...
.
In 1874, Pozzi and Réné Benoit published a translation of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's Expressions of Emotion in Humans and Animals.In 1875 Pozzi became a university teacher after his second thesis about using hysterotomy
Hysterotomy
A hysterotomy is an incision in the uterus, commonly combined with a laparotomy during a caesarean section. Hysterotomies are also performed during fetal surgery....
for uterine fibroma.
In 1876, Pozzi traveled to Scotland to the Congress of the British Medical Association
British Medical Association
The British Medical Association is the professional association and registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association’s headquarters are located in BMA House,...
to meet Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister
Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister OM, FRS, PC , known as Sir Joseph Lister, Bt., between 1883 and 1897, was a British surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary...
whose interest of antiseptics he supported. He later wrote the first French texts about the antiseptic methods. In 1877 Pozzi became chirurgien des hôpitaux
In 1879, Pozzi married Therese Loth-Cazalis, heiress of a railroad magnate, and had three children: Catherine, Jean, and Jacques. Pozzi did not appreciate the fact that his wife wanted her mother to live with them, a fact that made for a very unhappy marriage. Pozzi also had a number of romances, including those with the opera singer Georgette Leblanc
Georgette Leblanc
Georgette Leblanc was a French operatic soprano, actress, author, and the sister of novelist Maurice Leblanc. She became particularly associated with the works of Jules Massenet and was an admired interpreter of the title role in Bizet's Carmen...
, the actress Rejane, the widow of Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
, Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
, and Emma Sedelmeyer Fischof. Daughter of an art dealer and wife of a horse breeder, Fischof was a beautiful, cultured woman of Jewish heritage who became Pozzi's mistress in 1890. His wife refused to grant him a divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
but Firschhof remained his companion for the rest of his life.
Pozzi went to study gynecological methods to Austria, Germany and Britain and became one of the pioneers of gynecology in France. He wrote a prominent textbook, Clinical and Operative Gynaecology, which was published 1890 and widely translated.
Pozzi gained a great reputation as a teacher. He preferred to make his rounds dressed in white overalls and wearing a black cap.
In 1881, Pozzi became a hospital surgeon, specializing in gynecological and abdominal surgery. The same year he also became an honorary member of Mirlitons and met the painter John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
. Sargent's 1881 portrait of Pozzi depicts him in a red dressing gown and is currently display at the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
In 1883, Pozzi was appointed surgeon at the Hôpital de Lourcine-Pascal. After 1884 he gave theoretical lectures in the hospital.
In 1888, he became a president of the Society of Anthropology - he had been a member since 1870. He traveled widely to supplement his knowledge.
Pozzi established the first Chair of Gynecology in Paris in 1884. In 1889 he performed the first gastroenterostomy
Gastroenterostomy
A gastroenterostomy is the surgical creation of a connection between the stomach and the jejunum. The operation can sometimes be performed at the same time as a partial gastrectomy...
in France.
In 1896, Pozzi was elected to the French Academy of Medicine. In 1897 Pozzi was a co-founder of the ¨Revue de gynécologie et de chirurgie abdominale. In 1898 he commissioned painter Georges Clairin - probably because of their mutual friendship with Bernhardt - to paint a painting for the wall of his Hospital Lourcine.
In 1898, Sarah Bernhardt let only Pozzi operate her ovarian cyst
Ovarian cyst
An ovarian cyst is any collection of fluid, surrounded by a very thin wall, within an ovary. Any ovarian follicle that is larger than about two centimeters is termed an ovarian cyst. An ovarian cyst can be as small as a pea, or larger than an orange....
. In 1913 Pozzi and Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...
organized the first transplant
Organ transplant
Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...
symposium in Paris.
In 1914, joined forces again when the First World War erupted and became a military surgeon. In 1915 Sarah Bernhardt called again and Pozzi arranged a colleague to amputate
Amputation
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for...
her damaged leg.
Political and cultural interests
Pozzi also had cultural interest and befriended Marcel ProustMarcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
and Robert Proust and Robert de Montesquiou
Robert de Montesquiou
Marie Joseph Robert Anatole, comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac , was a French aesthete, Symbolist poet, art collector and dandy....
. In 1877 Pozzi also befriended poet Louise Ackermann when he asked her to teach him German. Salonniere Lydie Aubernon nicknamed him "the love doctor". Pozzi also corresponded with a feminist writer Augustine Bulteau. He also collected coins and statuettes.
In 1898 Pozzi was elected senator from Bergerac and represented his district for three years. He improved the water supply
Water supply
Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes...
and sewer
Sanitary sewer
A sanitary sewer is a separate underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings to treatment or disposal. Sanitary sewers serving industrial areas also carry industrial wastewater...
drainage of his town and was later involved with the restructuring of the French baccalaureate
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
exams. He did not seek re-election in 1902.
Pozzi also witnessed the second trial of Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
and supported the side of Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
who rightly believed that Dreyfus was innocent. In 1908 the ashes of Zola were transferred to the Pantheon and both Pozzi and Dreyfus were present. When the journalist Gregori shot at Dreyfus and wounded him on the arm, Pozzi rushed to his aid.
Death
On June 13, 1918, Maurice Machu, former patient from two years before, approached Pozzi in his consulting room. Pozzi had had to amputate his leg and he had become impotent. Machu asked him to operate again. When Pozzi refused because he could not remedy the situation, Machu shot him four times in the stomach. Pozzi ordered himself to be taken to the Historia Hospital but the emergency laparotomyLaparotomy
A laparotomy is a surgical procedure involving a large incision through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity. It is also known as coeliotomy.- Terminology :...
was unsuccessful. He asked to be buried in his military uniform and died shortly afterwards. Machu committed suicide later.
Pozzi was buried in the Protestant cemetery in Bergerac. He was survived by his diplomat son Jean de Pozzi and poet daughter Catherine de Pozzi.
Selected publications
- Étude sur les fistules de l’espace pelvi-rectal supérieur etc. Doctoral thesis, Paris, 1871
- De la valeur de l’hystérotomie dans le traitement des tumeurs fibreuses de l’utérus. Thèse d’agrégation, Paris, 1875
- Traité de gynécologie clinique et opératoire (Paris, 1890; 2nd edition, 1891; 4th edition, 1905-1907. Translated into six languages.