Philippe Ricord

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Ricord caricatured by André Gill, 1867

Philippe Ricord (born December 10, 1800 in Baltimore; died 1889) was a French physician.

He studied medicine in Philadelphia, and moved to Paris in 1820, where he graduated in medicine in 1826. After practicing in the provinces he returned in 1828 to the capital, and worked there as a surgeon, specializing in venereal diseases. Doctor Ricord was surgeon in chief to the hospital for venereal diseases and to the Hôpital du Miti. He won a world-wide reputation in his special field. For his suggestions on the cure of varicocele and on the operation of urethroplasty he received in 1842 one of the Montyon prizes.

In 1838, he proved John Hunters self-experiment wrong, thus showing that syphilis and gonorrhea are not the same disease. Ricord's chancre is the parchment-like initial lesion of syphilis.

In 1862 he was appointed physician in ordinary to Prince Napoleon. On October 26, 1869, he was named consulting surgeon to Napoleon III. For his services in the ambulance corps during the siege of Paris he was made Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1871.[1]

He was the brother of Jean Baptiste Ricord. There seems to be a controversy as to whether Jean Alfred Fournier, student of Ricord, was actually his son-in-law (see [2]).

[edit] Works

De l'emploi du speculum (Paris, 1833)
De la blennorrhagie de la femme (1834)
Emploi de l'onguent mercuriel dans le traitement de l'eresipele (1836)
Monographie du chancre (1837)
Théorie sur la nature et le traite-ment de l'epididymite (1838)
Traite des maladies veneriennes (8 volumes, 1838; fourth edition, 1866; English translation, A Practical Lecture on Venereal Diseases, 1842; thirteenth edition, 1854)
De l'ophthalmie blennorrhagique (1842)
Clinique iconographique de l'hopital des veneriens (1842-1851)
De la syphilisation (1853)
Lettres sur la syphilis (1851; third edition, 1863; English translation, 1853)
Leçons sur le chancre (1858; second edition, 1860; English translation, 1859)