Louis Denis Jules Gavarret, sometimes referred to as Louis Dominique Jules Gavarret (28 January 1809 – 30 August 1890) was a French physician who advocated the use of statistics in medicine.

Life

Gavarret was born in

Astaffort Astaffort (; oc, Astahòrt) is a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department in southwestern France. It is situated on the river Gers, about 15 km south of Agen. Astaffort has a mill and the church of Sainte-Geneviève. Population Personali ...

, Lot-et-Garonne. He studied at the ''Ecole Polytechnique'' in Paris, followed by military service as an artillery officer. In 1833 he resigned his commission and began his studies with

Gabriel Andral Gabriel Andral (6 November 1797 – 13 February 1876) was a distinguished French pathologist and a professor at the University of Paris. In 1828 Andral was appointed professor of hygiene, and in 1839 succeeded François-Joseph-Victor Broussais (17 ...

(1797–1876). Gavarret is remembered for the systemization and expansion of

Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis Pierre-Charles-Alexandre Louis (14 April 178722 August 1872) was a French physician, clinician and pathology, pathologist known for his studies on tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and pneumonia, but Louis's greatest contribution to medicine was the de ...

' (1787-1872) statistical methodology in regards to medicine. Pierre Louis' contention was to make medicine an exact science in diagnosis of a medical condition, and also to refute the "inductive approach" that was prevalent at the time. Gavarret was a major proponent of the statistical method. He emphasized that the process would only work under certain conditions, such as the medical cases must be comparable, and there has to exist enough examples to reach an exact conclusion. Gavarett's precision or "confidence rate" was calculated to be 99.5% or a ratio of 212:1. In essence, the two doctors believed that through knowledge of the aggregate patient data, the disease and treatment would be understood. In 1840, Gavarret and Gabriel Andral were the first to show that

blood composition Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the cir ...

varied depending on the pathological condition of the subject. Their research demonstrated the value of blood chemistry as a means of confirming diagnoses. His later work largely dealt with topics in the fields of biophysics and

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

, that included research of acoustic and

phonation The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defini ...

phenomena.

Writings

* ''Sur les modifications de properties de quelques principes du sang (fibrine, globules, materiaux solides du sérum, et eau) dans les maladies''. Ann Chim 1840 (with G. Andral). * ''Recherches sur la quantité d’acide carbonique exhalé par le poumon dans l’espèce humaine''. written with G. Andral 30 pages, 1 pl. Paris, Masson & cie., 1843. Ext.

Annales de chimie et de physique __NOTOC__ ''Annales de chimie et de physique'' ( French for ''Annals of Chemistry and Physics'') is a scientific journal founded in Paris, France, in 1789 under the title ''Annales de chimie''. One of the early editors was the French chemist Ant ...

. * ''Principes généraux de statistique médicale, Béchet Jne et Labé'', L. Gavarret, Paris, 1840. * ''Lois générales de l'électricité dynamique'' (1843) * ''Physique médicale. De la chaleur produite par les êtres vivants'', (1855) * ''Les phénomènes physiques de la vie'', (1869).
Yale Libraries

References

History of Statistical Thinking in Medicine
19th-century French physicians 1809 births 1890 deaths People from Lot-et-Garonne {{France-med-bio-stub