Antoine Dubois

Antoine Dubois, later Baron Dubois, was a French surgeon born in 1756 in Gramat in the department of Lot. He was appointed a professor of surgery in 1790, and in 1798 he served as chief surgeon to the French campaign in Egypt and became a member of the Institut d'Égypte. In 1802 he took a post at a private hospital that later became known as the Maison Dubois. After the death of Pierre Lassus he became consultant surgeon to Napoleon, and in 1810 he replaced Jean-Louis Baudelocque as head of maternity services. In that role he delivered the emperor's son, the future Napoleon II, and was given the title Baron of the Empire. He held a clinical professorship at the Faculté de Médecine from 1820, lost it in 1822 and had it reinstated in 1829. He published little, but is credited with improving a number of surgical instruments, including a forceps. His son Paul Antoine Dubois became an obstetrician. Dubois died in 1837.