Joseph Honoré Simon Beau (May 8 1806 in Collonges, department of Ain – August 11, 1865) was a French physician, who is famous for his investigations of the physiology of the heart and the lungs.
In 1836 he obtained his doctorate with the thesis De l’emploi des évacuants, etc. From 1840 he was an assigned as a physician to the "Bureau central", earning his agrégation several years later (1844). In July 1856 he became a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine.
He was a leading advocate of pathological physiology. Treatises involving his studies of the heart and lungs were initially published in the "Archives générales de médecine" (1834 to 1845), and compiled in his "Traité expérimental et clinique d'auscultation appliqué à l'étude des maladies du poumon et du coeur" (1856).