Jean Baptiste Philippe Barth

Jean Baptiste Philippe Barth studied medicine at the University of Paris from 1826. After completing his studies he was was an interne for several years, particularly in the clinic of Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (1787-1872) in the Hôpital de la Pitié. Here he acquired a great reputation among the students for his course in pathological anatomy. In 1840 he was appointed médecin des hôpitaux and served as physician and teacher in the Paris hospitals for more than 30 fruitful years. A ”product” of the Louis school, Barth continued the path of his great master, always eager to compare the clinical observations with postmortem findings, thus using pathological anatomy for the greater understanding of clinics. As a medical writer he is mostly remembered for his work on auscultation written with Henri Louis Roger (1809-1891).

Barth, who contributed a large number of valuable pathological works to various journals, enriched the Dupuytren museum with hundreds of preparations. He was a distinguished member of the Paris medical community and a treasured member of the Académie de médecine, being elected vice president in 1871, president the following year.

Ailing health forced Barth to rest from his strainous professional life. Accompanied by his children he travelled to Italy, but in Napoli acquired a severe malaria infection which in its third attack turned into febris perniciosa syncopalis. The attack lapsed, but caused various local diseases after his return to Paris, and he died in November that year. He was the last important representative of the Louis school.

We thank Patrick Jucker-Kupper, Switzerland, for information submitted.

• Traité pratique d’auscultation; ou, Exposé methodique des diverses applications de ce mode d'examen à l'état physiologique et morbide de l'économie; suivi d'un précis de percussion.
  By Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger. Paris, Béchet et Labé, 1841.
  515 pages.
  First published in 1841. Later editions in 1844, 1854; 8th edition, 1874; tranlsated into German, English and Italian.
• A Practical Treatise on Auscultation. By M. Barth and Henry Roger. Translated with Notes, by Patrick S. Newbigging (1813-1863). Translation of the 1841 first edition of Traité d'auscultation. Edinburgh: Maclachlan, Stewart, & Co. / London: Whittaker & Co., 1842. 1st Edition in English, 1st printing. XXII + 398 pages.
• Rapport au ministère de l’instruction publique sur l’organisation de la médecine en Allemagne. Moniteur, Paris, 1844.
• Traité pratique d'auscultation; ou, exposé méthodique des diverses applications de ce mode d'examen à l'état physiologique et morbide de l'économie.
  Par M. Barth et M. Henry Roger. Paris: Labé, Éditeur, Libraire de la Faculté de Médecine, 1844. 2nd Revised & enlarged Edition. XIV + 686 pages
• A manual of auscultation and percussion.
  Philadelphia : Lindsay & Blakiston, 1845.
  By Jean Baptiste Barth, Henri Louis Roger and Francis Gurney Smith (1818-1878)..
• A manual of auscultation and percussion.
  Philadelphia : Lindsay & Blakiston, 1849.
  By Jean Baptiste Barth, Francis Gurney Smith, and Henri Louis Roger.
• Traité pratique d’auscultation suivi d'un précis de percussion.
  Paris : Labé, 1850. 706 pages.
  By Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger.
• Traité pratique d’auscultation; ou, exposé méthodique des diverses applications de ce mode d'examen à l'état physiologique et morbide de l'économie.
  Par M. Barth et M. Henry Roger.
  Paris: Labé, Éditeur, Libraire de la Faculté de Médecine, 1854. 5th Revised & enlarged Edition. XVIII + 719 pages.
• Traité pratique d’auscultation.
  Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger. 1860. 736 pages.
• A manual of auscultation and percussion : as applied to the diagnosis of disease of the heart and lungs, and to pregnancy. By Baptiste Philippe Barth and Henri Louis Roger.
  Translated from the French by J. H. Pottenger. St. Louis : Studley, 1860.
• Séméiotique des maladies de l'enfance. Leçons professées en 1863. 1864.
• Traité pratique d'auscultation, suivi d'un précis de percussion.
  Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger. 6th edition. Paris : Asselin, 1865.
• A manual of auscultation and percussion.
  By Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger.
  Philadelphia : Lindsay & Blakiston, 1866.
• Recherches cliniques sur la chorée, le rhumatisme et les maladies du coeur chez les enfants. 2 parts, 1867 and 1868.
• Traité pratique d'auscultation, suivi d'un précis de percussion.
  Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger. Paris : Asselin et Houzeau, 1870.
• Recherches anatomo-pathologiques sur la paralysie spinale de l’enfance (paralysie infantile). With François Damaschino (1840-1890). 1872.
• Recherches cliniques sur les maladies de l'enfance. 2 volumes, 1872 and 1883.
• Traité pratique d'auscultation, suivi d'un précis de percussion.
  Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger. Paris, P. Asselin Editeur, 1874.
• De la ponction du péricarde. 1875.
• Recherches cliniques sur le communication congénitale des deux coeurs par inocclusion du septum intrerventriculiare.
  Bulletin de l’Académie de médecine, Paris, 1879, série 2, 8: 1074-1094, 1189-1191.
  German translation by von Loeffler in: Medicinisch–chirurgisches Central–Blatt, Wien, 1881; 16: pp 1 and 26.
• Traité pratique d'auscultation suivi d'un précis de percussion.
  Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger. Paris : Asselin, 1880. 752 pages.
• Traité pratique d'auscultation suivi d'un précis de percussion.
  Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger.
  Paris : Asselin et Houzeau, 1887. XVI + 872 pages.
• Traité pratique d'auscultation suivi d'un précis de percussion.
  Jean Baptiste Barth and Henri Louis Roger. Paris : Asselin et Houzeau, 1893.
• A practical treatise on auscultation.
  Classics of Cardiology Library; Special edition, 1988.
• August Hirsch (1817-1894), publisher:
  Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte aller Zeiten und Völker.
  2nd edition. Berlin, Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1929.
  First published in 6 volumes 1884-1888. 3rd edition, München 1962.