| Michel-Philippe Bouvart | |
| Birth Date: | 11 January 1717 |
| Birth Place: | Chartres |
| Death Place: | Paris |
| Nationality: | French |
| Occupation: | Physician |
| Years Active: | 1730-1783 |
| Known For: | Witticisms |
| Work Institutions: | French Academy of Sciences, Collège Royal, Paris Faculty of Medicine |
| Prizes: | Order of St. Michael |
Michel-Philippe Bouvart (Chartres, 11 January 1717 - Paris, 19 January 1787) was a French medical doctor.
He was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1743 and a professor in the Paris Faculty of Medicine in 1745 and also in the Collège Royal in 1745, where he took the medical chair previously held by . Louis XV granted him letters of nobility and the Order of St. Michael in 1768 or 1769.[1]
Bouvart was famous for his quick diagnoses and accurate prognoses, but also for his caustic wit and polemical writing against his fellow physicians, notably Théodore Tronchin, Théophile de Bordeu,, Antoine Petit. He was opposed to inoculation against smallpox. He championed Virginia polygala or Seneka as a remedy for snakebite.[1] [2]
Although he was able and learned, he is perhaps best known for his witticisms.[3]
Variants of Bouvart's quip about the placebo effect of using a new treatment or medicine "while it still works" are often quoted without crediting him.
A "regular prelate" (prélat régulier) is a high-ranking churchman; this is a play on words, implying that he was irregular, that is, immoral. Abbot Terray is Joseph Marie Terray.
This story has been compared to Euricius Cordus's epigram:
Bouvart's father Claude was a physician.[4] Michel-Philippe received his medical degree in Reims in 1730 and practiced in Chartres. In 1736, he left for Paris.