Léon Clément Le Fort (5 December 1829,

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

– 19 October 1893) was a French

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

remembered for his work on uterine prolapse, including Le Fort's operation. He also described Le Fort's fracture of the ankle and Le Fort's amputation of the foot.

Biography

Léon Le Fort undertook medical training in

Paris Paris () is the capital and 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), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

under

Joseph-François Malgaigne Joseph-François Malgaigne (14 February 1806 – 17 October 1865) was a French surgeon and medical historian born in Charmes-sur-Moselle, Vosges. He studied medicine in Paris, and was later a surgeon of Parisian hospitals, including Hôpitals Sa ...

and Stanislas Laugier, and was awarded his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

in 1858. He volunteered in the Second Italian War of Independence from 1859, and became prosector at the Paris medical faculty in 1861. Between 1865 and 1872 he worked as surgeon to the Paris hospitals ''Hospice des enfants-assistés'', ''Hôpital du Midi'', ''

Hôpital Cochin The Hôpital Cochin is a hospital of public assistance in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques Paris 14e. It houses the central burn treatment centre of the city. The Hôpital Cochin is a section of the Faculté de Médecine Paris-Descartes. It comm ...

'', ''Hôpital Laboisière'' and ''Hôpital Beaujon'', and was head of a

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile A ...

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

during the Franco-Prussian War. In 1873 he became professor of surgery at the Paris medical faculty and surgeon at '' Hôtel-Dieu de Paris''. He was awarded the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

in 1870, and promoted to the rank of ''Officier'' in 1882. He was elected member of the ''

Académie Nationale de Médecine Situated at 16 Rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the Académie nationale de médecine (National Academy of Medicine) was created in 1820 by King Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the instituti ...

'' in 1876; he became its president in 1893 but died later in the same year. Léon Le Fort was the uncle and godfather of French army surgeon

René Le Fort René Le Fort (30 March 1869 – 30 March 1951) was a French surgeon from Lille known for creating a classification for fractures of the face. Early life René Le Fort was born in 1869, in Lille. His father was a physician and his uncle a renow ...

, and the son-in-law of

Legacy

Le Fort's work covered a broad spectrum of

surgery Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pat ...

, orthopaedic surgery,

gynaecology Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined are ...

pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...

and military surgery. He published articles on resection of the kneeDe la résection de genou. (1859) and hip,De la résection de la hanche. (1861) uterine prolapse and its treatment,Des vices de conformation de l’utérus et de vagin et des moyens de remédier. (1863) and pregnancy.Des maternités. (1866) He discovered communication between

bronchial A bronchus is a passage or airway in the lower respiratory tract that conducts air into the lungs. The first or primary bronchi pronounced (BRAN-KAI) to branch from the trachea at the carina are the right main bronchus and the left main bronchus. ...

and

pulmonary vessels The pulmonary circulation is a division of the circulatory system in all vertebrates. The circuit begins with deoxygenated blood returned from the body to the right atrium of the heart where it is pumped out from the right ventricle to the lungs. ...

,Recherches sur l’anatomie des poumons chez l’homme. (1858) and was a proponent of asepsis in hospitals in France and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

before bacteriology was established.Note sur l’hygiène hospitalière en France et en Angleterre. (1862) A number of Le Fort's descriptions and inventions still bear his name: * Le Fort's fracture of the ankle – vertical

fracture Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displa ...

of the distal

fibula The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. Its upper extremity is ...

with avulsion of the lateral malleolus. * Le Fort's amputation – osteoplastic

amputation Amputation is the removal of a limb by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on indi ...

of the foot, removing part of the os calcis. * Le Fort's operation – operation for uterine prolapse. * Le Fort's sound – curved

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

used to treat

urethral stricture A urethral stricture is a narrowing of the urethra, the tube connected to the bladder that allows the passing of urine. The narrowing reduces the flow of urine and makes it more difficult or even painful to empty the bladder. Urethral stricture is ...

s in male patients.

Notes

References

1829 births 1893 deaths French surgeons {{France-med-bio-stub