Pierre Demours

Pierre Demours (1702 to 1795) was a French physician, zoologist and translator. Born in Marseille to a pharmacist father, he studied medicine at Avignon and then Paris, where the anatomist Duverney chose him as assistant and Pierre Chirac later made him a demonstrator at the Jardin du Roy. On the advice of Antoine Petit he specialized in the anatomy and diseases of the eye and became a successful oculist. He described a membrane between the proper substance of the cornea and its endothelial layer, which is now usually called Descemet's membrane after a priority dispute with Jean Descemet, though it is still sometimes called the membrane of Demours. He also reported on the reproduction of the common midwife toad, a description that was doubted until confirmed in 1872. He translated English scientific and medical works into French, including Stephen Hales on ventilation, and died in Paris in 1795. He should not be confused with his son Antoine-Pierre Demours, also an eye specialist.