Reverdin

REVERDIN Jacques-Louis (Jacques-Louis Reverdin, 1842--1929). He completed a course at the Geneva Academy of Natural Sciences and then graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Paris in 1869, dedicating himself to surgery while working at the Hôpitaux de l'Assistance Publique and the Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière. He participated in the aid of the wounded of the Franco-German War of 1870. For his dissertation on internal urethrotomy (Reverdin, 1870), he received the title of Doctor of Medicine, a bronze medal from the faculty, and the Sivial Prize from the Academy of Medicine. During his assistantship under the famous Huyon, he wrote a work on epidermal grafts (1870); this was the first work on free tissue grafting in time, which was awarded the Amussat Prize in the Academy of Medicine in 1874. After this, he worked in Geneva, where he remained until his death as head of the surgical department at the Canton Hospital. Reverdin introduced antiseptics, which were unknown there up to that point. From 1876 he became professor of general surgery and operative surgery at the Geneva medical faculty. R. laid the foundation for thyroid surgery, first described "postoperative myxedema" (1883), and introduced the famous "Reverdin needle" (which received especially wide distribution in the modification of his cousin Auguste Reverdin). In 1910, R. devoted himself to the study of the biology of butterflies, anatomy and physiology, which brought him the title of honorary member of the entomological societies of Switzerland, France, England, Brazil, and the USA. R. was the founder and editor of the journal "Revue medicale de la Suisse Romande" (Geneva, from 1881). The total number of R.'s printed works exceeds 70. Reverdin was a great scientist, a direct, honest man, a daring and skilled surgeon-innovator and a widely educated and talented naturalist. The main merit of Reverdin should be considered the introduction of free tissue grafting into surgery and the elucidation of the important role of the thyroid gland for the organism, about which there was not yet a fully clear conception before him.