Pierre Bitôt

Pierre Alain Bitôt (1822 to 1888) was a French physician, anatomist and surgeon, born in Podensac and remembered for describing the conjunctival lesions that carry his name. He attended medical school in Bordeaux and qualified in 1846, then gained his doctorate of medicine from the faculty of Paris in 1848 and joined the anatomy department in Bordeaux. He became Professor of anatomy there in 1854 and was made a Chirurgien des Hôpitaux in 1878. The triangular spots seen on the conjunctiva of the eye are named after him, and he first described them in 1863. His career therefore joined the teaching of anatomy with hospital surgery.