Jean Zuléma Amussat

Who was Jean Zuléma Amussat?

Jean Zuléma Amussat was a French surgeon.

Amussat was born in Saint-Maixent, Deux-Sèvres. He became a renowned physician whose primary contributions were in the field of genitourinary surgery. Most of his work was through a private practice he held in Paris. He is remembered for the eponymous "Amussat's method" or "torsion of the arteries", which is a procedure used to arrest arterial hemorrhaging. He was also an early practitioner of lithotripsy, which was a "minimally invasive" surgery to crush stones inside the bladder via the urethra. This operation necessitated use of a recently invented device known as a lithotrite.

Amussat has several eponyms related to him:

Amussat's fold: abnormal folds of the membranous urethra at the level of the seminal colliculus.

Amussat's method: torsion of the arteries to prevent arterial hemorrhaging.

Amussat's operation: extraperitoneal colostomy in the lumbar region for obstruction of the colon.

Amussat's valves: Spiral valves within the cystic duct. The cystic duct is the anatomical structure that joins the gall bladder to the common bile duct.