Louis Denis Jules Gavarret

Louis Denis Jules Gavarret (1809-1890} was a French physician who was born in Astaffort, a town in the canton of Lot-et-Garonne. He graduated from l'Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

Gavarret is remembered for the systemization and expansion of Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis' (1787-1872) statistical methodology in regards to medicine. Pierre Louis' contention was to make medicine an exact science in diagnosis of a medical condition, and also to refute the "inductive approach" that was prevalent at the time. Gavarret was a major catalyst regarding the statistical method. He emphasized that this process would only work under certain conditions, such as; the medical cases must be comparable, and there has to exist enough examples to reach an exact conclusion. Lavarett's precision or "confidence rate" was calculated to be 99.5% or a ratio of 212:1. In essence, the two doctors believed that through knowledge of the aggregate patient data, the disease and treatment would be understood.

In 1840, Gavarret and Gabriel Andral (1797-1876) were the first to show that blood composition varied depending on the pathological condition of the subject, and their research demonstrated the value of animal chemistry as a means of confirming diagnoses.

Bibliography:
 * Andral G, Gavarret J. Sur les modifications de properties de quelques principes du sang (fibrine, globules, materiaux solides du sérum, et eau) dans les maladies. Ann Chim 1840
 * Recherches sur la quantité d’acide carbonique exhalé par le poumon dans l’espèce humaine. Written with G. Andral 30 pages., 1 pl. Paris, Masson & cie., 1843. [Ext. Annales de chimie et de physique.
 * Principes généraux de statistique médicale, Béchet Jne et Labé, L. Gavarret, Paris, 1840.

External link

 * History of Statistical Thinking in Medicine