Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud



Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud (September 16, 1796 - October 29, 1881) was a French physician who was born near the town of Angoulême. He received his medical doctorate in 1823 and afterwards was a professor at the Charité in Paris.

Bouillaud performed research of many medical diseases and conditions, including cancer, cholera, heart disease and encephalitis, to name a few. He is remembered for providing a correlation between rheumatism and heart disease, and French medical dictionaries still refer to acute rheumatoid endocarditis as Bouillaud's disease. He describes this condition in his treatise Traité clinique des maladies du coeur. Bouillaud was also an early practitioner of the drug digitalis for treatment of heart ailments. He referred to digitalis as the "opium of the heart".

In 1825 Bouillaud published Traité clinique et physiologique de l'encéphalite, ou inflammation du cerveau in which he includes one of the earliest studies regarding localization of brain functions. He maintained that loss of articulate speech was associated with lesions of the anterior lobes. Also, along with cardiologist Pierre Potain (1825-1901) he performed studies regarding "heart sounds" and the differentiation between normal and abnormal heart rhythms. Bouilland was an ardent follower of François-Joseph-Victor Broussais (1772-1838) concerning the dubious practice of bloodletting.

Puerto Rican independence leader, surgeon and Légion d'honneur laureate, Ramón Emeterio Betances, was one of his prominent students.