Jean-Baptiste de Sénac (1693–1770) was a French physician was born in the district of Lombez in Gascony, France.

Early life and education

Details of his early life are sketchy, however, it is generally thought that he studied medicine at the University of Leyden, and later in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, where one of his instructors was John Freind (1675–1728). Beginning in 1723, he practiced medicine in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, later serving (from 1752 to 1770) as a personal physician to King

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...

Contributions to medicine

Sénac is remembered for important studies of the

heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...

in an era when cardiological medicine was rudimentary. In 1749 he published a book on cardiology called ''Traité de la structure du coeur, de son action, et de ses maladies'' (Treatise on the structure of the heart, its action, and its diseases), an influential work that systematically dealt with physiological, anatomical and

pathological Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in th ...

issues involving the

. In the treatise, he discusses heart disorders and diseases that he analyzed personally, as well as diagnoses that were determined by other physicians. Many of Sénac's discoveries were derived from

autopsies An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any d ...

. He was the first physician to describe the correlation between atrial fibrillation and mitral valve disease, as well as the first to provide a comprehensive study of cardiac

hypertrophy Hypertrophy is the increase in the volume of an organ or tissue due to the enlargement of its component cells. It is distinguished from hyperplasia, in which the cells remain approximately the same size but increase in number.Updated by Linda J. ...

. He also conducted research of cinchona extract and rhubarb as possible treatments for cardiac irregularities. Gabriel Sénac de Meilhan was his son.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Senac, Jean-Baptiste de 1693 births 1770 deaths People from Gers French cardiologists 18th-century French physicians Leiden University alumni