Dominique Jean Larrey

Dominique Jean Larrey (8 July 1766 – 25 July 1842) was a French surgeon in Napoleon's army and an important innovator in battlefield medicine. Larrey was born in the little village of Beaudéan, in the Pyrenees to bourgeois parents, who later moved to Bordeaux. Larrey was orphaned at the age of 13. He was then raised by his uncle Alexis, who was chief surgeon in Toulouse. After serving a 6-year apprenticeship, he went to Paris to study under the g... more

Dominique Jean Larrey (8 July 1766 – 25 July 1842) was a French surgeon in Napoleon's army and an important innovator in battlefield medicine. Larrey was born in the little village of Beaudéan, in the Pyrenees to bourgeois parents, who later moved to Bordeaux. Larrey was orphaned at the age of 13. He was then raised by his uncle Alexis, who was chief surgeon in Toulouse. After serving a 6-year apprenticeship, he went to Paris to study under the great Desault, who was chief surgeon at the Hôtel Dieu. His studies were cut short by war. Larrey was surgeon-in-chief of the Napoleonic armies from Italy in 1797 to Waterloo in 1815. During this time, he initiated the modern method of army surgery, field hospitals and the system of army ambulance corps. After seeing the speed with which the carriages of the French flying artillery maneuvered across the battlefields, Larrey adapted them as Flying Ambulances for rapid transport of the wounded and manned them with trained crews of drivers,... less