Félix Vicq d’Azyr (1748–1794)

Excerpt

Vicq d’Azyr was a typical exponent of the Enlightenment: physician, anatomist, medical historian and social reformer [1‐3]. Born in Valognes (Normandy) as the son of a local physician, he went to Paris to study medicine in 1765. Influential teachers were the anatomist Antoine Petit (1722–1794) and the naturalist Louis Daubenton (1716–1800). Soon after graduation in 1772, he started giving anatomy lessons himself, both public and private, but in the next year he fell ill with haemoptysis, presumably from tuberculosis. He went back to Normandy to regain his health, meanwhile studying the anatomy and physiology of fish. Having recovered, he studied birds and quadrupeds, all of which earned him admission to the ‘Académie des Sciences’ in 1774, the same year in which he obtained his doctorate. …