Édouard Chassaignac

Édouard-Pierre-Marie Chassaignac (24 December 1804 to 26 August 1879) was a French medical doctor and surgeon. Born in Nantes, he became prosector and professor at the university in 1835 and a physician at the central bureau of the hospitals of Paris. He originated the surgical operation known as écrasement, by which tumors, piles, polypi and other growths can be removed without the effusion of blood, and he is credited with the general introduction of drainage in surgery, including the use of drainage tubes. His written works include a treatise on linear écrasement, lessons on tracheometry, a surgical clinic published in the 1850s and a practical treatise on suppuration and surgical drainage, and with Gustave-Antoine Richelot he translated the surgical works of Astley Cooper into French. The strongly developed anterior tubercle of the sixth cervical vertebra is known as Chassaignac's tubercle.