Jean-Baptiste Octave Landry
Jean-Baptiste Octave Landry de Thézillat (1826 – 1865) was a French physician and neurologist.
Nephew of Dr. de Thézillat a Limoges psychiatrist and neurologist specialising in nervous disease. Landry is often regarded as the first to describe an ascending paralysis. In 1859 he documented 10 cases (5 he had treated and 5 he had read about) and described three manifestations (1) ascending paralysis without sensory signs/symptoms, (2) ascending paralysis with anaesthesia and analgesia and, (3) a progressive generalised disorder with paralysis and sensory signs.
Landry volunteered his work on multiple cholera epidemics and was distinguished for this during his working life.
Biography
- Born 10th October 1826 in Limoges, France
- Student of Adolphe-Marie Gubler, who recognised paralysis occurring after infections and may have suggested this topic to Landry
- 1854 – Doctoral thesis; Paris Considérations générales sur la pathogénie et les indications curatives des maladies nerveuses.
- The chair of his examination board where he defended his doctoral thesis Considérations générales sur la pathogénie et les indications curatives des maladies nerveuses (General considerations of pathogenesis and therapeutic indications of nervous diseases), which consolidated his love for neuroscience
- 1859 published an article about ascending paralysis in Gazette hebdomadaire de médecine et de chirurgie (Weekly Newspaper of Medicine and Surgery) where he described 5 cases of his own patients, and an additional 5 cases from the literature
- Died 1st November 1865 from a cholera outbreak spread by cruise ship passengers arriving in Marseille from Alexandria, Egypt despite treatment from his friends and colleagues Charcot and Noel Gueneau
Medical Eponyms
- Guillain–Barré syndrome (1859) [*aka Landry ascending paralysis; Landry-Guillain–Barré–Strohl syndrome]
Major Publications
- Landry O. Memoire sur le choléra épidémique, 1849
- Landry O. Recherches physiologiques et pathologiques sur sensations tactiles. Archives générales de Médecine 1852; 4(29): 257-275 and 1852;4(30):28-56
- Landry JBO. Considérations générales sur la pathogénie et les indications curatives des maladies nerveuses. 1854
- Landry JBO. Mémoire sur la paralysie du sentiment d’activité musculaire. 1855
- Landry JBO. De l’emploi du chloroforme et des narcotiques comme agents thérapeutiques et comme moyens de diagnostic dans certaines paralysies. 1857
- Landry JBO. Note sur la paralysie ascendante aiguë. Gazette hebdomadaire de médecine et de chirurgie, 1859; 6(30): 472-474 and 1859;6(31):486-488 [Guillain–Barré syndrome]
- Landry JBO. Note sur un état nerveux très commun attribué à tort à la congestion cérébrale. 1861
References
- Walusinski O. Octave Landry 1826-1865. Le Bâillement
- Fresquet JL. J.-B.-Octave Landry (1826-1865). Historia de la Medicina
- Portrait of J.-B. Octave Landry, by Courbet. La Presse médicale. 1933
- Bailey P, Ewing J. A contribution to the study of acute ascending (Landry’s) paralysis. New York. 1896.
- Buzzard EF. On the pathology and bacteriology of Landry’s paralysis. London: John Bale, Sons and Danielsson. 1903
- Cowan J, Ballantyne JA, MacDonald D. A case of Landry’s paralysis. 1909.
- Afifi K. The Landry-Guillain-Barré Strohl Syndrome 1859 to 1992 A Historical Perspective. J Family Community Med. 1994 Jan-Dec; 1(1): 30–34. [PMC3437179]
- Walusinski O. Pioneering the concepts of stereognosis and polyradiculoneuritis: Octave Landry (1826-1865). Eur Neurol. 2013;70(5-6):281-90
- Young P. Landry, Kussmaul, and Guillain-Barré-Strohl syndrome. Medical Journal of Chile, 2014; 142(7): 930-931
eponym
the person behind the name
Physician in training. German translator and lover of medical history.