Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière (March 19, 1803 – April 28, 1876) was a Swiss-born French manufacturer of surgical instruments. Charrière was born in Cerniat, in the

Canton of Fribourg The canton of Fribourg, also canton of Freiburg (french: Canton de Fribourg ; german: Kanton Freiburg ; frp, Canton de Fribôrg rm, Chantun Friburg it, Canton Friburgo) is located in western Switzerland. The canton is bilingual, with French ...

, Switzerland. He moved to

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. ...

at age 13, and was apprenticed to a manufacturer of knives. In 1820, he founded a company manufacturing surgical instruments, which quickly grew to 400 employees by around 1840, and was world-famous by his death. He became a naturalized French citizen in 1843. He developed and improved a number of instruments, especially

hypodermic needle A hypodermic needle (from Greek ὑπο- (''hypo-'' = under), and δέρμα (''derma'' = skin)), one of a category of medical tools which enter the skin, called sharps, is a very thin, hollow tube with one sharp tip. It is commonly used w ...

s and

catheter In medicine, a catheter (/ˈkæθətər/) is a thin tube made from medical grade materials serving a broad range of functions. Catheters are medical devices that can be inserted in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgical procedure. Cat ...

s; the

French catheter scale The French scale, French gauge or Charrière system is commonly used to measure the size of a catheter. It is most often abbreviated as Fr, but can often be seen abbreviated as Fg, FR or F. It may also be abbreviated as CH or Ch (for Charrière, ...

is named after his work. In order to achieve this, Charrière benefitted from at the time newly developed materials such as

nickel silver Nickel silver, Maillechort, German silver, Argentan, new silver, nickel brass, albata, alpacca, is a copper alloy with nickel and often zinc. The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc. Nickel silver does not contain the eleme ...

, stainless steel, and

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, a ...

. Several of his apprentices also became well-known instrument makers, including Georges-Guillaume-Amatus Lüer, Louis-Joseph Mathieu, and Adolphe Collin in Paris; Josef Leiter in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

; and

Camillus Nyrop Camillus Nyrop (18 February 1811 - 24 December 1883) was a Danish instrumentmaker and bandagist. He was the founder of Camillus Nyrops Etablissement, Denmark's first manufacturer of surgical instruments and artificial lims. Early life and educat ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. He was inducted into the

Legion of Honour 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 1851, and died in 1876 in Paris.

Measuring unit

His name is used as a measuring unit for the outer

diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest chord of the circle. Both definitions are also valid fo ...

and the general size of urological instruments, endoscopes and

catheters In medicine, a catheter (/ˈkæθətər/) is a thin tube made from medical grade materials serving a broad range of functions. Catheters are medical devices that can be inserted in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgical procedure. Cat ...

for a various purposes (1 Charrière = 1 mm outer circumference ~ 1/3 mm outer diameter). In English-speaking countries, the name "Charrière" was found difficult to pronounce. Thus, the term "French" was rapidly adopted in its stead. This is now generally used as a measuring unit for medical catheters and introducers (1 French = 1/3 mm).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Charriere, Joseph Frederic Benoit 1803 births 1876 deaths 19th-century French inventors Swiss emigrants to France

Measuring unit

Further reading

References