Pourfour du petit biography

Abstract

François Pourfour du Petit (1664-1741) was a Parisian experimental Neuroanatomist, and Ophthalmologist.

Based on his extensive experiences of brain and spinal injuries as a military doctor in the armies of Louis XIV he performed many animal experiments that demonstrated the anatomy and functional significance of the cervical sympathetic nerves, correcting previous errors of Thomas Willis and Raymond Vieussens.

He long predated the descriptions of Horner’s syndrome (1869) when he showed that interruption of sympathetic pathways inactivated both the dilator muscle and produces miosis, and the superior tarsal muscle, which produces ptosis and enophthalmos.

This was later elaborated by Hare, Weir Mitchell and Claude Bernard.

The tetrad of ptosis, miosis, enophthalmos, and impaired facial sweating was described in 1869 by Johann Friedrich Horner (1831-1886) (Figure 1), Professor of Ophthalmology in Zurich:

Anna Brändli, aged 40, a healthy looking peasant woman…six