Broca

Broca, PAUL, a distinguished French surgeon and anthropologist, was born at Sainte-Foy-le-Grande, Gironde, in 1824. After pursuing his medical studies with distinction, he was named professor of Surgical Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, and surgeon successively of the four hospitals of Bicêtre, the Salpêtrière, Saint Antoine, and La Pitié. He was also director of the Laboratory of Anthropology in the High School of Paris. Celebrated not only as a surgeon, Broca was regarded as one of the most learned masters of the existing school of anthropology. He founded the Paris Anthropological Society, of which he was secretary till his death, and he was a member of all the leading medical, biological, and anatomical societies of Paris and the Continent. Elected a member of the Academy of Medicine in 1866, he was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1868. Broca was a voluminous writer, and among his more important works may be cited the following: Dcs Anévrismes et de leur Traitement (1856), Sur l'Anesthésie Chirurgicale Hypnotique (1859), Études sur les Animaux Ressuscitants (1860), Instructions Générales pour les Recherches Anthropologiques (1865), Traité des Tumeurs (1865), Caractère Physique de l'Homme Préhistorique (1868), and L'Anatomie Comparée de l'Homme et des Primates (1869). He also collaborated in the production of several important medical and physiological works. In 1878 he presided over an International Congress on Anthropology held in Paris. He died July 9, 1880.