Antoine Portal

Biography

Descendant of a family of apothecaries of Cahuzac on Vere, elder of a phratry of twelve children, it studies the Médecine with Albi and Toulouse. In 1765, it obtains its title of doctor with Montpellier, where it starts to teach the Anatomie.

In 1766, it settles in Paris. Thanks to the recommendation of the cardinal of Bernis (1715-1794) near the doctors of the king Jean-Baptiste Guyonnet-Senac (1693-1770) and Joseph Lieutaud (1703-1780), it is named tutor of anatomy near the Dolphin in 1767.

In 1769, it enters to the Academy of Science and it succeeds Antoine Ferrein (1693-1769) with the pulpit of anatomy to the royal Collège. It publishes a Histoire of the anatomy and surgery , containing the origin and progress of these sciences.

In 1776, Buffon (1707-1788) the fact of naming professor of anatomy to the Garden of the king. He obtains the pulpit lately created of human anatomy to the national Muséum of natural history in 1793. In 1803, it makes appear its famous Cours of medical anatomy in five volumes. Louis XVIII the fact of naming first doctor of the king, function which it also occupies under Charles X.

He contributes largely to creation, in 1820, of the Académie of medicine, of which he is named honorary president. This academy aimed to gather the elite of the doctors and the French surgeons.

It succeeds in surviving all the political regimes all while collecting all the honors there. Fertile author, it however does not carry out any major discovery.

Antoine Portal dies on July 23rd, 1832 of the continuations of the disease of the stone man, at the 90 years age. He is buried with the cemetery of the Martyrdom (Saint-Pierre de Montmartre).

Writings of Antoine Portal

In 1827, it publishes an article on the harbingers of the epilepsy:

Sometimes an idea of comparable nature precedes the access; other times this idea which is often repeated are different, but more or less sad; a gravatif headache precedes them often, at the same time or in the intervals of which it occurs a notable weakening in the bodies of the sight, the sense of smell, hearing, of the taste, as well as a large debilitation in the mouvemens and the sensitivity of the parts which constitute the trunk and the ends, while it, there is more frequent is on the contrary an exaltation in their sensitivity and their movement. There are cramps in the muscles of various parts of the body; feet and legs especially, and more often still of the giddinesses which are more or less durable and violens. They are accompanied by noises which the patients test in the ears; of a defect of the sense of smell such as what appeared to the patient to have very good odor seems to him very stinking; it is what was several times observed; while some other epileptics tested such a change in the sense of smell, the taste, and hearing, that this feelings became more exquisite to them than in the state naturel.

Il has tremors of the members there, baillemens, belches, nauseas, with a feeling of retraction in the area épigastrique.

Cependant very often the epilepsy occurs in a so prompt way and without being announced by any previous symptom, than the patients fall suddenly to ground. It is undoubtedly of this fall which the name came to him from null and void evil that it carries, denomination which, for the same reason, was given to the apoplexy, that one also called morbus attonitus.

Principal publications

Precise of practical surgery, containing the history of the surgical diseases, and the manner the most use of treating them (2 volumes, 1768)
History of the anatomy and the surgery, containing the origin and progress of these sciences (7 volumes, 1770-1773)
Observations on the effects of the mephitic vapors on the body of the man and the means of recalling to the life those which were suffocated by it (1775)
Observations on the nature and the treatment of the rage, followed by a historical precis and critical of the various remedies which were employed up to now against this disease (1779)
Observations on the nature and the treatment of the rickets, or the curves of the spinal column, and those of the higher and lower ends (1797)
Memories on the nature and the treatment of several diseases, by Antoine Portal, with the precis of the experiments on the animals vivans, of a pathological course of physiology (1800-1825)
Course of medical anatomy, or Élémens of the anatomy of the man, with physiological and pathological remarks, and the results of the observation on the seat and the nature of the diseases, according to the opening of the bodies (5 volumes, 1803-1804)
Treatment of asphyxiated the (1805)
Observations on the nature and the treatment of the pulmonary phthisy (1809) Text in line 1 2
Observations on the nature and the treatment of the apoplexy, and on the means of preventing it (1811) Text in line
Observations on the nature and the treatment of the diseases of the liver (1813)
Observations on the nature and the treatment of the hydropisy (2 volumes, 1824)
Observations on the nature and the treatment of the epilepsy (1827) Text in line

External bond

Biographical note of the national Academy of medicine

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