Arnault Tzanck (1886–1954) was a French physician and a pioneer of
blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but mo ...
. During the First World War, he was a doctor in the military ambulance where he realized the vital role of the blood transfusions.
Arnault Tzanck's name is attached to an apparatus he invented that was widely used for transfusing blood in France between the wars, as well as a simple test he devised using the microscopic analysis of scrapings from skin cancer lesions, different ganglia, and some forms of dermatitis especially pemphigus. The Tzanck smear is still widely used as a test for herpes, among other diseases. A
deep learning
Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised.
De ...
model was developed to analyze Tzanck smears and named after him as ''TzanckNet''.
He also experimented with different methods of preserving blood and blood substitutes. Tzanck's most lasting contribution was in the organization of blood transfusion in France that eventually resulted in the creation of the Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine (National Blood Transfusion Center), which was established in 1949 with Tzanck as its first director. In the process, Tzanck educated a whole generation of serologists and immunologists, including
Jean Dausset
Jean-Baptiste-Gabriel-Joachim Dausset (19 October 1916 – 6 June 2009) was a French immunologist born in Toulouse, France. Dausset received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1980 along with Baruj Benacerraf and George Davis Snell fo ...
,
Marcel Bessis
Marcel Claude Bessis (15 November 1917 – 28 March 1994) was a French physician known for research on blood cells.
Bessis was born in Tunis on 15 November 1917. He was educated at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in Paris, France. He developed an int ...
, and
Jean Pierre Soulier
Jean Pierre Soulier (14 September 1915 – 18 January 2003) was a French physician and haematologist. He was the General Director of Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine (CNTS) Paris and professor of haematology at the University of Paris
...
.
References
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See also
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Tzanck test
In dermatopathology, the Tzanck test, also Tzanck smear, is scraping of an ulcer base to look for Tzanck cells. It is sometimes also called the chickenpox skin test and the herpes skin test. It is a simple, low-cost, and rapid office based test.
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1886 births
1954 deaths
Transfusion medicine
French hematologists
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