Lucien Baudens

Lucien Baudens; lithograph by N. E. Maurin

Lucien Jean-Baptiste Baudens (April 3, 1804 – December 27, 1857) was a French military surgeon.

Biography

He was born in Aire-sur-la-Lys in the northern France from Jean-Louis Baudens, sheet merchant, and Marie-Adélaïde Baclen[1] at the end of the Consulate and one month before the First Empire of Napoleon (May 18, 1804).

After studying medicine at the French Defence Health service of the University of Strasbourg, then in Paris (Val-de-Grâce military hospital), he was granted his M.D. in 1829.[2] He participated to the French conquest of Algeria from the invasion of Algiers in 1830, then of Constantine, Médéa, Mascara, Tlemcen, Milianah with the general Pierre Berthezène. He served in the African Army for ten years and was commended eight times in the army corps order. He was made Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1831 and Officer in 1835.

In 1832, he had the French military hospital moved from Turkish Caratine barracks to the Hussein Dey's country house, and transformed it in military training hospital then in military medicine school. In 1836, the hospital closed and Baudens left the country. He was appointed professor in Lille then in Val-de-Grâce military hospital. In 1852, he was appointed Physician General Inspector.[3]

As early as 1837, he insisted on the double experience necessary for a military surgeon: at the same time on the battlefield then in hospital.[4] He was a defender of early amputations, accomplished with a true parage of regularization, the most distal possible to keep length and flaps suffisant for future equipment. It is a current recommendation for the realization of amputations in war traumatology and which is necessary for a functional equipment.[4] He was the first to describe "the concept of circumferential wiring for mandibular fracture".[5]

In 1853, in the French Academy of Sciences, he laid out the basic principles and rules of conduct that ensure good use of chloroform and considered this drug as the most effective and successful in military surgery.[6]

He was sent on mission as expert during the Crimean war in 1855 by Marshal Vaillant. His mission was to inspect Army medical services and to report on the condition of military hospitals and ambulances. On site, he helped wounded and ill soldiers by taking forward measures against Service Corps and separated wounded and soldiers suffering from typhus.[7] He was impressed by the work of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, of the Russian Sisters of the Exaltation of the Cross and specially of Florence Nightingale.[7]

This frail young woman [...] embraced in her solicitude the sick of three armies.
— Lucien Baudens, La guerre de Crimée, les campements, les abris, les ambulances, les hôpitaux , p.104

He noted that in Pera, 42 officers died of illness on 46 dead officers. He wrote about French physicians and stretcher-bearers helping 8,000 wounded Russian soldiers remained on the battlefield after the battle of the Chernaya on August 16, 1855. But their comrades, failing to understand this initiative, attacked them with artillery. So he suggested a common distinctive sign must be carried by all health staff as identical as possible for all Armies but this proposal was not taken up and his idea was forgotten.[8]

He reported that chloroform had been successfully used in more than 25,000 wounded (over 8% of the total force).[9]

Himself fell ill with typhus and back in Paris, he died on December 27, 1857 aged 53.

Works

Honours

References

  1. ↑ "Base de données Léonore (Légion d'honneur)" (in French). Archives nationales.
  2. 1 2 Narboux, Roland. "Hôpital Baudens de Bourges" (in French). Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  3. ↑ Le Minor, Jean-Marie (2005). "Les anatomistes d'Alger durant la période coloniale française (1830-1962)" (pdf). Histoire des Sciences Médicales (in French). 39 (4): 385–396.
  4. 1 2 Rigal, S. (2008). "Chirurgie militaire et blessés des membres" (pdf). Médecine et armées (in French). 36 (5): 1–10. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  5. ↑ Sen, Ranajit (January 1, 2003). Fractures of Mandible. Jaypee Brothers Publishers. p. 237. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  6. ↑ Fèvre, G.; Gallic, J.Y.; Lemarec, C.; Morell, E.; Saïssy, J.M.; Tortosa, J.C. (March 18, 2008). "Règles pour l'anesthésie selon Baudens". Histoire de l'anesthésie et de la réanimation (in French).
  7. 1 2 Grand, Chantal (August 14, 2013). Souvenirs d'un homme ordinaire (in French). BoD - Books on Demand France. p. 143. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  8. ↑ Bugnion, François. "Red Cross, Red Crescent, Red Crystal" (PDF). International Committee of the Red Cross. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  9. ↑ Howat, D.D.C. (October 1998). "French and British Anaesthesia in the Crimea - A comparison" (pdf). Proceedings of the History of Anaesthesia Society: 27–32. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  10. ↑ "Baudens, Jean Baptiste Lucien (1804-1857)". Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de santé. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
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