Jean Cruveilhier

Jean Cruveilhier (French pronunciation: ​[kʁyveje]; February 9, 1791 – March 7, 1874) was a French anatomist and pathologist.

Cruveilhier was born in Limoges, France. As a student in Limoges, he planned to enter the priesthood. He later developed an interest in pathology, being influenced by Guillaume Dupuytren (1777-1835), a friend of Cruveilhier's father. In 1816 he earned his medical doctorate in Paris, where in 1825 he succeeded Pierre Augustin Béclard (1785–1825) as professor of anatomy. In 1836 he relinquished the chair of anatomy to Gilbert Breschet (1784–1845), and in doing so, became the first occupant of the recently founded chair of pathological anatomy.

In 1836 he was elected to the Académie de Médecine, becoming its president in 1839. For over forty years he was president of the Société anatomique. Puerto Rican pro-independence leader, surgeon and Légion d'honneur laureate, Ramón Emeterio Betances, was one of his prominent students. He died, aged 83, in Sussac.

He was a highly influential anatomist, making important contributions in his study of the nervous system. Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) credits Cruveilhier as being the first to describe lesions associated with what today is known as multiple sclerosis, of which were depicted in Cruveilhier's Anatomie pathologique du corps humain (two volumes 1829-1835, 1835-1842). Cruveilhier is also credited as being the first to provide a pathological account of the disease.

...
Wikipedia