Charles Marie Édouard Chassaignac

Charles Marie Édouard Chassaignac commenced his medical studies in his native town of Nantes, continued in Paris and was promoted doctor in that town on 1835 with a dissertation on fractures of the neck of the femur. Two years later he became professor agrégé at the faculty as well as prosector. He then held various positions, among them surgeon to the Bureaus Central des Hôpitaux, and vice president of the Société anatomique. At this time, with Gustave Antoine Richelot (1807-1893), he published a translation of Astley Cooper’s (1768-1841) The principles and practice of surgery, as Oeuvres chirurgicales complètes (1835, 1837).

Chassaignac's career was interrupted after seven unsuccessful attempts to achieve a chair at the university through concours, as Philippe-Frédéric Blandin (1798-1849), Auguste Bérard (1802-1846), Joseph François Malgaigne (1806-1865), Stanislas Laugier (1799-1872), and Auguste Nélaton (1807-1873) were preferred. Not until 1869 was he accepted by the faculty and appointed professor of anatomy and surgery in Paris.

In 1857 Chassaignac was president of the Société de chirurgie and in 1868 he became a member of the Académie de médecine.

• De la fracture du col du fémur, étudiée spécialement sous le point de vue de l’antomie pathologique. Doctoral thesis; in Nouv. édit, 1835.
• Quels sont les agens de la circulation veineuse etc. Thesis for agrégé, 1837.
• Diss. sur la texture et le développement des organes de la circulation sanguine.
  Concours-thesis for a chair of anatomy, 1836.
• Lésions traumatiques du crâne et des parties qu’il contient.
  Concours-thesis for a chair of clinical surgery, 1842.
• Des membranes muqueuses. Concours-thesis for a chair of anatomy, 1846.
• De l’appréciation des appareils orthopédiques.
  Concours-thesis for a chair of operative surgery, 1846.
• Des tumeurs de la voûte du crâne.
  Concours-thesis for a chair of operative surgery, 1846.
• Des opérations applicables aux fractures compliquées.
  Concours-thesis for a chair of operative surgery, 1850.
• Des tumeurs enkystées de l’abdomen. 1851.
• Études d’anatomie et de pathologie chirurgicale. Thèses . . . (de 1836 à 1851).
  2 volumes, Paris, 1851. A collection of his concours-theses.
• Clinique chirurgicale de l’hôpital Lariboisière. 1854-1858.
• Lecons sur la trachéotomie. 1855.
• Mém sur l’ostéo-muélite. 1854
• Traité de l’écrasement linéaire etc. Paris, 1856.
• Traité pratique de la suppuration et du drainage chirurgical.
  2 volumes, Paris, V. Masson, 1859.
  Chassaignac was not the inventor of surgical drainage, but he was the first to apply india-rubber tubes to drain abscesses.
• Traité clinique et pratique des opérations chirurgicales etc.
  2 volumes, Paris, 1861, 1862.
• Origine du procédé des résections sous-périostées. 1872.
• Des épanchements purulents de la poitrine tarités par le drainage chirurgical. 1872.
• De l’empoisonnement du sang par matières organiques. Paris, Masson, 1873.
• August Hirsch, publisher:
  Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte aller Zeiten und Völker.
  Urban & Schwarzenberg. 2nd edition. Berlin, 1929, pp. 890-891.
  First published in 6 volumes 1884-1888. 3rd edition, München 1962.
• J. Pagel, publisher:
  Biographisches Lexikon hervorragender Ärzte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts.
  Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin and Vienna, 1901, page 320.