Antoine Clot

Antoine Barthelemy Clot (7 November 1793 – 28 August 1868) was a French physician known as Clot Bey while practicing in Egypt.

He was born at Grenoble, and graduated in medicine and surgery at Montpellier. After practising for a time at Marseilles he was made chief surgeon to Mehemet Ali, viceroy of Egypt. At Abu Zabal, near Cairo then Kasr Alaini, he founded a hospital and schools for all branches of medical instruction, as well as for the study of the French language; and, notwithstanding the most serious religious difficulties, instituted the study of anatomy (see his photo teaching^[1]) by means of dissection. In 1832 Mehemet Ali gave him the dignity of bey without requiring him to abjure his religion; and in 1836 he received the rank of general, and was appointed head of the medical administration of the country.

In 1849 he returned to Marseilles, though he revisited Egypt in 1856. He died at Marseilles in 1868, aged 74. The thick-billed lark, Rhamphocoris clotbey was named in Clot's honor by naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803–1857).

His publications included:

• Relation des epidemies de cholera qui ont regne de l'Heggaz, a Suez, et en Egypte (1832)
• De La Peste observe en Egypte (1840)
• Apercu general sur l'Egypte (1840)
• Coup d'oeil sur la peste et les quarantaines (1851)
• De l'ophthalmie (1864)

Legacy

• A street in his hometown of Grenoble was named after him.
• A Street in down town Cairo was named after him.^[2]
• Many statues of him are present at Kasr Alaini hospital and in its museum.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.