Augustin Jacob Landré-Beauvais (1772–1840) was a French
surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...
best known for his description of
rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects synovial joint, joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and h ...
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
Lyon
Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
. In 1796, he obtained an internship at the famed Salpêtrière Hospital, where he assisted Philippe Pinel. He was appointed professor of clinical medicine at the Salpêtrière in 1799. After the restoration, he also held the professorship at the Paris polytechnic school. He was removed in 1830 at the insistence of King
Louis-Philippe of France
Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850), nicknamed the Citizen King, was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, the penultimate monarch of France, and the last French monarch to bear the title "King". He abdicated from his thron ...
.
His description of rheumatoid arthritis, now regarded as the first modern-day account of the disease, incorrectly identified it as a form of
gout
Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of pain in a red, tender, hot, and Joint effusion, swollen joint, caused by the deposition of needle-like crystals of uric acid known as monosodium urate crysta ...
. Before Landré-Beauvais, several other physicians had already discovered that it may be distinct from gout. The name "rheumatoid arthritis" itself was coined in 1859 by Alfred Baring Garrod. Landré-Beauvais' other preserved work, ''Séméiotique, ou traité des signes des maladies'' (initially published in 1809) concerns the physical signs of medical illnesses in general.