Alfred Auvard
Pierre-Victor-Adolphe Auvard (name sometimes given as Pierre-Victor Alfred Auvard in medical literature); (8 August 1855 – 1941) was a French obstetrician and gynecologist born in the department of Corrèze.
He studied medicine in Paris, and in 1879 became interne des hôpitaux. In 1882 he furthered his studies in Germany (Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin), and in 1884 received his doctorate with a thesis titled De la pince à os et du cranioclaste. Later he maintained a private OB/GYN clinic in Paris.
During the 1880s, he introduced the "Auvard couveuse", an inexpensive incubator that became widely popular in the latter part of the 19th century. Other eponyms in the field of obstetrics that bear his name are: "Auvard maneuver" - a procedure for extraction of the placenta; "Auvard's vaginal speculum", and "Auvard's basiotribe" - an instrument that is a combination of a craniotomy forceps and a cranioclast.
Selected publications
- Du traitement de l'eclampsie puerpérale (Paris 1888) - Treatment for puerperal eclampsia.
- Travaux d'obstétrique (three volumes 1889) - Obstetrical works.
- Hygiène infantile ancienne et moderne (with Pingat: 1889) - Ancient and modern child hygiene.
- Traité pratique d'accouchements (1890) - Practical treatise on birthing.
- Le nouveauné; physiologie, hygiène, allaitement, maladies les plus fréquentes et leur traitement (1890) - On the newborn; physiology, hygiene, nursing, the most common illnesses and their treatment.
- De l'antisepsie gynécologie et en obstétrique (1891) - Antiseptics in gynecology and obstetrics.
References
- Pagel: Biographical Dictionary (translated biography)
- Neonatology on the Web Archives of Pediatrics 17:331-46, 1900