Daviel, Jacques

SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology

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b. 11 August 1696 La Barre, Normandy, France

d. 30 September 1762 Geneva, Switzerland

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French ophthalmic surgeon who originated the technique of the removal of the cataractous lens of the eye.

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Apprenticed in surgery to his uncle in Rouen, he became a student surgeon in the French Army in 1713. In 1719 he was honoured for his work during an outbreak of plague in Marseille, and in 1723 he was appointed Surgeon to the Hôtel-Dieu. In 1746 he moved to Paris, and in 1749 he became Surgeon-Oculist to Louis XV. Although he had, like many others, performed couchings (intra-ocular displacement of the lens) for the treatment of cataracts, his dissection of cadavers at Marseille led him to attempt the actual removal from the eye of the opaque lens. He performed the first such operation on a monk of Provence on 8 April 1745, and by 1753 he was able to report 115 cases with 100 successes. The difficulties of the technique precluded its immediate adoption, and couching remained the standard treatment for much of the century.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Cross of the Knights of Saint Roch. Corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Surgery.

Bibliography

1748, "Lettre sur les maladies des yeux", Mercure de France.

1753, "Sur une nouvelle méthode de guérir la cataracte par l'extraction du crystallin", Mem. Acad. roy. chir. Paris.

Further Reading

S.Duke-Elder, 1969, System of Ophthalmology, Vol. 11, London.

MG