Chomel, AF

NAME:

Chomel, Auguste Francois

ACHIEVEMENTS:

Advances in clinical medicine

NICKNAME/ALIAS:

None

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:

13 April 1796, Paris, France

DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:

9 April 1858, Morsan, Seine-et-Oise, France. Aged 62

DISCIPLINE:

Physician

FIELD:

Medicine

LANGUAGE:

French

PARENTS:

Father: name unknown

Mother: name unknown

SIBLINGS:

???

SPOUSE:

???

CHILDREN:

???

EDUCATION:

Charite Hospital, Paris

MAJOR WORK:

None

LIFE AND TIMES:

Chomel was the last of a long line of medical men in his family. He was trained at the Paris Charite, a large hospital then regarded as the best in the capital, and which specialized in diseases of the chest and lead poisoning. 

In 1827, Chomel  succeeded Laennec* as professor of clinical medicine. He was interested in pathological anatomy and allowed Louis* to collect case histories from his ward patients at the Charite and to observe autopsies carried out on those who died.

Chomel became the leading clinical practitioner in Paris and although he did not discard all the traditional treatments, and opposed clinical thermometry, Chomel defended Louis’s position on fever against Broussais* and he supported Magendie’s* advocacy of quinine as a drug. His own experience with dyspeptic patients alerted Chomel to psychosomatic phenomena.

He was a brilliant teacher, much revered by his students for his clear expositions and gentle manner. In 1832, he agreed to become honorary president of the Society for Medical Observation formed by medical students to teach and promote the value of accurate and detailed clinical observations and records.

Chomel later worked at the Hotel Dieu hospital,  where he took became professor of internal pathology and succeeded in improving the practice and teaching of internal medicine  to match the advances in surgery already made there.

ASSESSMENT: Chomel is remembered for allowing  Pierre Louis to collect the data used to establish the application of statistics to medicine.  

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None

ONELINER: AF Chomel,  early pioneer of clinical medicine

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Archives biographiques francais, Series 2

Ackerknecht, Erwin H, Medicine at the Paris Hospital, 1794-1848, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore,1967

Bowditch, Henry, Brief Memories of Louis and Some of His Contemporaries, John Wilson and Son, Boston, 1872