Jacques Guillemeau

Jacques Guillemeau (1550 to 1613) was a French surgeon from Orléans who worked in sixteenth century Paris and is credited with early contributions to obstetrics, ophthalmology and pediatrics. He served as a surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris and was a favored student of Ambroise Paré, who was also his father-in-law, and like Paré he was a surgeon to French royalty. In 1584 he published Traité des maladies de l'oeil, a treatise on eye diseases regarded as one of the best Renaissance works in ophthalmic medicine, and he is credited with the first description of the repair of palpebral coloboma, an eyelid defect. His 1609 book De l'heureux accouchement des femmes, on the happy delivery of women, gave the first description of a method of assisted breech delivery, and he practiced podalic version in cases of placenta praevia, a procedure Paré had revived earlier. His other publications include Tables anatomiques and La chirurgie française.