Pierre Dionis

Pierre Dionis, born in Paris in 1643 and dying there on 11 December 1718, was a French surgeon and anatomist who became First Surgeon of the Enfants de France. He trained at the Confrérie de Saint-Côme et de Saint-Damien in Paris, where he reached the rank of master surgeon, and was influenced by the anatomist Guichard Joseph Duverney. He served as surgeon to the King and to Queen Maria Theresa from 1669, and in 1672 Louis XIV appointed him to teach anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes according to the circulation of the blood, at a time when the Paris Faculty of Medicine contested William Harvey's discovery. He later became first surgeon to the Dauphine and then to the Duchess of Burgundy. His 1690 anatomy textbook was a great success and was translated into several languages, and he also published a general treatise on childbirth and a course of surgical operations.