| Louis Lépecq de La Clôture | |
| Birth Date: | 12 July 1736 |
| Birth Place: | Caen, Calvados, France |
| Death Place: | Saint-Pierre-Azif, Calvados, France |
| Nationality: | French |
| Years Active: | 1763–1794 |
| Known For: | Observations sur les maladies épidémiques (Observations on epidemic diseases) |
| Profession: | Surgeon |
| Field: | Epidemiology |
| Work Institutions: | Hôpital de la Charité |
| Prizes: | Ennobled by Louis XVI |
Louis Lépecq de La Clôture (12 July 1736 – 5 November 1804) was a French surgeon and epidemiologist. His work consisted mainly of a 15-year observation of the relations between climate, geography and pathologies in Normandy.
Son of Louis Lépecq de La Clôture (1706–1742), doctor-regent and professor of surgery at the Faculty of Medicine in Caen[1] and Madeleine Pyron, he was born in Caen in Calvados.He began his medical studies in Caen where, in 1755, he obtained his medical degree. After a stay in Paris where he worked at the Hôpital de la Charité, notably under the direction of Théophile de Bordeu who taught him to "replace words with facts" he returned to Caen (1763) as an agrégé at the Faculty and Professor of Surgery.[1] [2]
In 1769, he went to Rouen, where he was agrégé at the College of Physicians then appointed doctor of the Hôtel-Dieu de Rouen, then doctor of the Prisons and doctor of the Généralité for epidemic diseases.[3] He married Marie Claude Lebon there in 1780.
He quickly abandoned surgery to devote himself to medicine and especially epidemiology. He began criss-crossing Normandy to gather observations on the relationship between diseases and the environment.
He first published in 1776 a rather classical work on observations of epidemic diseases, based on Hippocrates' table of epidemics, by Order of the Government and at the expense of the King.[4]
At the same time, he joined forces with all the doctors of Normandy and invited them to communicate to him the details relating to the medical topography of the places where they lived and criss-crossed Normandy for several years to collect the observations necessary for the drafting of a Collection of observations on diseases and epidemic constitutions (Collection d'observations sur les maladies et constitutions épidémiques), by Order of the Government and dedicated to the King.[5] [6] In 1782, he became president of the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Rouen then associate member of the Société royale de médecine de Paris.[1] Recognised for his work, he was knighted by Louis XVI in 1785.[7]
But the King's reward almost became fatal to him for, if his successes had admirers, they also had envious ones. They took advantage of the disturbances of the revolution and had him imprisoned as a suspect during the Terror: he was held for a long time and was only released after cruel suffering. Disgusted with the city of Rouen, Lépecq withdrew in 1794 to Saint-Pierre-Azif, his family's homeland. Despite his fortune, he did not remain idle and devoted the rest of his life to medicine.
He died in Saint-Pierre-Azif in 1804.[8]
Lépecq de la Clôture applied the teachings of his master Théophile de Bordeu, the leader of vitalism in France. Following Haller's work, they practised observation and experimentation.[9] [10] Although it is opposed to mechanism (Democritus, Descartes, Cabanis), vitalism (Paul-Joseph Barthez) should not be confused with animism (Georg Ernst Stahl): the animist does not simply subordinate matter to life, he submits matter to life and life to thought. On the contrary, vitalist philosophers consider intellectual activity to be fundamentally subordinate to life. At the time, the main merit of vitalism was to give back its meaning and originality to life, reduced to the extreme since Descartes and the mechanistic conception of life he imposed by assimilating organic life to an infinitely complicated automaton, but governed by the laws of inanimate matter.[11] Barthez's theory will be taken up by Xavier Bichat, who roots vitalism in an authentic scientific approach.
The book Collection d'observations sur les maladies et constitutions épidémiques is divided into four parts.
In 1783, he established with precision the health consequences of the eruption of the Laki volcano on the population of Rouen with, in particular, a resurgence of "acute scurvy" and intermittent fevers.[12]
Rue Lepecq de la Clôture is named after him in Rouen, in the Gare-Jouvenet district .