Name Raoul Bensaude | Role Physician | |
Died October 25, 1938, Paris, France | ||
Raoul Bensaude (26 January 1866 – 25 October 1938) was a French physician born in the Azores. He became a famous gastroenterologist that pioneered proctology in France. With Pierre-Emile Launois (1856-1914), he provided a detailed description of multiple symmetrical lipomatosis, also referred to as "Launois-Bensaude syndrome".
Raoul Bensaude went to school in Germany near Hannover and moved to Paris to study medicine. His doctoral thesis under supervision of Emile Charles Achard (1860-1944) was noticed as the first characterization of the bacillus, Salmonella paratyphi B causing paratyphoid fever. Bensaude then moved to Hôpital Saint-Antoine in Paris, where he was patronized by Georges Hayem (1841-1933) and finished his career as chef de service.
Bensaude made multiple contributions in the field of gastroenterology. Thanks to Lucius Littauer, an American philanthropist, he founded at Hôpital Saint-Antoine the first service of proctology in France. He is credited for popularizing sclerotherapy for treatment of hemorrhoids, and developed a model of rectoscope named after him. His treatise Rectoscopie: Sigmoïdoscopie. Traité d'endoscopie recto-colique had a worldwide impact.