Paul Barbette

Paul Barbette (5 February 1620, Strasbourg [ Dates range from 1919 to 1929, but Charles Edmond Perrin in his "Trois provinces de l'Est: Lorraine, Alsace, Franche-Comté", 1957, p. 29, gives a precise birth date as well as his parents. ] - 1666?, Amsterdam) was a celebrated Dutch physician.

After finishing his medicine studies at Leiden University in 1645, he practised both medicine and surgery in Amsterdam. He was a determined enemy of bleeding in all cases, relying chiefly on sudorifics. He proposed the operation of gastrostomy in cases of intussusception of the bowels, and introduced some improvements in surgical instruments.

He wrote many works, which have been frequently reprinted, and he was held as a high authority in his day. His writings, however, contain little that is original, but they display much learning and acquaintance with his profession. They are in Dutch and Latin, and have been collected in "Opera omnia medica et chirurgica" (Amsterdam, 1672, 8 volumes), which was translated in Italian, German, French, and English.

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