Georges Fernand Isidore Widal

Georges Fernand Isidore Widal was born in Dellys, Algeria, the son of an army surgeon. He studied medicine in Paris, became an intern in 1884 and doctor of medicine in 1889, and remained in that city for all his professional life. He became médecin des hôpitaux in 1893, agrégé in 1894. He was appointed professor of internal pathology in 1911, in 1918 for clinical medicine, remaining in office until 1929. He was a member of the Académie de médecine from 1906, from 1919 the Académie des sciences.

Widal was a brilliant speaker and lecturer who took great trouble in preparation. He was described as a precise man who was not self centred and greatly admired his colleagues’ abilities. Together with G. H. Roger and P. J. Teissier he edited 22 volumes of a medical textbook.

The story is told by Clovis Vincent (1879-1947), the famous French neurosurgeon, that he approached Widal with the intention of spending a year with him when he was an intern at the Salpêtrière. The reply he got was “Not until you have won the gold medal”. Vincent won the medal but when he was asked whether he still wished to work with Widal replied, “Oh, no, they say you are too much of a rabbit doctor. I want to get a job where I can learn something of general medicine, the neurologists just talk and do nothing.”

In 1896 Widal developed a procedure for diagnosing typhoid fever based on the fact that antibodies in the blood of an infected individual cause the bacteria to bind together into clumps (the Widal reaction). He also recognized (1906) the body's retention of sodium chloride as a feature of nephritis (inflammation of the kidney) and cardiac oedema (accumulation of excessive fluid in tissues as a result of heart disease), recommending salt deprivation in the treatment of both diseases. He demonstrated the increased fragility of red blood cells in cases of haemolytic jaundice and, with the French physician Georges Hayem, described the acquired form of the disease (the Hayem-Widal type, 1907). During World War I, Widal prepared an antityphoid-paratyphoid vaccine that appreciably reduced typhoid contagion among the allied armies.

He died of a cerebral haemorrhage after an acute attack of gout.

• De l’immunité contre le virus de la fièvre typhoïde conférée par des substances solubles.
  With André Chantemesse (1851-1919)
  Annales de l’Institut Pasteur, Paris, 1888, 2: 54-59.
  Experimental antityphoid inoculation.
• Sur les microbes de la dysentérie épidémique.
  Bulletin de l’Académie de médecine, Paris, 1888, 19: 522-529.
  The dysentery bacillus was isolated by Chantemesse and Widal, although they failed to establish its aetiological relationship to the disease.
• Recherches de la réaction agglutinante dans le sang et le sérum desséchés des typhiques et dans la sérosité des vésicatoires. With Arthur Sicard.
  Bulletin des membres de la Société des médecins des hôpitaux de Paris, Paris, 1896, 13: 681-682.
  Developing the work of Gruber and Durham, Widal noted that a patient’s serum could be tested with bacteria of known type and his disease indentified by this means. The Gruber-Widal test was the outcome of this work.
• Etude sur l’infection puerpérale, la phlegmatia alba dolens et l’érysipèle. Paris, 1899.
• La cure de déchloruration dans le mal de Bright et dans quelques maladies hydropigènes.
  With A. Javal. Paris, 1906; 2nd edition, 1913.
• Streptococcie, staphylococcie, pneumoccie, colibacillose.
  With Jules Courmont (1865-1917), Louis Théophile Joseph Landouzy (1845-1917), Nicolas Augustin Gilbert (1858-1927). Nouveau traité de médecine, fasc. 10; Paris, 1906.
• Maladies des veines et des lymphatiques.
  Nouveau traité de médecine, fasc. 25; Paris, 1911.
• Fièvres typhoïde et paratyphoïde.
  With André-Alfred Lemierre (1875-1956) and Pierre Abrami (1879-1943).
  Nouveau traité de médecine, 3rd edition, fasc. 3; Paris, 1927.
• La dysenterie bacillaire. With Lemierre and Abrami.
  Nouveau traité de médecine, 3rd edition, fasc. 3; Paris, 1927.
• Les ictères. With P. Abrami.
  Nouveau traité de médecine, 3rd edition, fasc. 16; Paris, 1928.
• Spirochétose ictéro-hémorrhagique.
  With E. May. Nouveau traité de médecine, 3rd edition, fasc. 16; Paris, 1928.
• Hémoglobinurie. With P. Abrami.
  Nouveau traité de médecine, 3rd edition, fasc. 17; Paris, 1929.