Pierre Potain

Pierre Charles Édouard Potain (July 19, 1825 - January 5 1901) was a French cardiologist who was born in Paris. For much of his career he was associated with Necker Hospital in Paris. He was an assistant to Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud (1796-1881), and regarded Bouillaud as a major influence in his study of cardiology.

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Potain made several contributions involving cardiovascular disease and his testing of cardiac-related matters. Some of the tests included analysis of jugular venous waves, heart gallop rhythm research, blood pressure testing and auscultatory analysis. In 1889 he was credited for making modifications to the sphygmomanometer, a device used to measure blood pressure that had been recently invented by Samuel Siegfried Carl von Basch (1837-1905).

The term Potain's sign is an extension of percussion dullness over the aortic arch from the manubrium to the third costal cartilage on the right-hand side of the body. Potain's name is also associated with several other eponymous medical terms; the following terms are rarely used today and are for historical purposes only.

• Potain's disease: pulmonary edema
• Potain's solution: diluent used in a procedure to count red blood cells
• Potain's syndrome: dyspepsia with expansion of the right ventricle, and an increase of pulmonary auscultation.

Written works

• Des lésions des ganglions lymphatiques viscéraux. Paris, Remquet, 1860.
• De la Succession des mouvements du coeur, réfutation des opinions de M. Beau, leçon faite à l'Hôtel-Dieu. Paris: impr. de H. Plon, 1863
• Note sur les dédoublements normaux des bruits du coeur, présentée à la Société médicale des hôpitaux, dans la séance du 22 juin 1866, par le Dr Potain,. Paris: impr. de F. Malteste, 1866.
• Des mouvements et des bruits qui se passent dans les veines jugulaires. Bull. Soc. Méd. Hôp. Paris (Mémoires), 1867, 2 sér., 4, 3-27.
• Du Rhythme cardiaque appelé bruit de galop, de son mécanisme et de sa valeur séméiologique, note présentée à la Société médicale des hôpitaux de Paris Paris: A. Delahaye, 1876. También en : Bull. Soc. Méd. Hôp. Paris (Mémoires), (1875), 1876, 12, 137-66.
• Des Fluxions pleuro-pulmonaires réflexes d'origine utéro-ovarienne. Paris: impr. de Chaix, 1884.
• Du sphygmomanomètre et de la mesure de la pression artérielle chez l'homme à l'état normale et pathologique. Arch. Physiol. Nom. Path., 5 sér., 1, 556-69.
• Dernière leçon de M. le professeur Potain. Paris: impr. de J. Gainche, 1900.*
• La Pression artérielle de l'homme à l'état normal et pathologique Paris: Masson, 1902.

References

• Google-translated article from Historiadelamedicina.org