Alfred Velpeau

Alfred Velpeau (1795-1867) was a French anatomist and surgeon who obtained his doctorate in Paris in 1823 and was appointed chair of clinical surgery, a post he held until his death; in 1843 he succeeded Dominique Jean Larrey at the Academie des sciences. He provided the first accurate description of leukemia, in 1827, and authored more than 340 medical publications covering surgery, anatomy, obstetrics and embryology. He is remembered for the Velpeau bandage, a sling and wrap used to immobilize the arm and shoulder after injury or surgery, and several other conditions bear his name, including Velpeau's hernia. Despite his surgical eminence, he initially held that surgery and pain were inseparable, a view challenged by the introduction of ether and chloroform anesthesia in the 1840s.