Étienne Destot (1864–1918) : l’anatomie radiographique

Abstract

Destot was born in Dijon, France, in 1864. He began his education in Burgundy, then he started his preclinical curriculum in Lyon, France, from 1884. He had to leave Lyon, and spent some times in Algeria to treat a tuberculosis. He came back in Lyon as a resident in 1886. Destot worked as an assistant in the laboratory of anatomy of Leo Testut in 1880. His thesis, in 1892, analyzed mortality in the departments of surgery of the Lyon hospitals. The polemical results he presented compromised his surgical career. He went on as prosector by Leo Testut, and then became electrician-physician in 1895 (electrotherapy and galvanotherapy). Étienne Destot of Lyon, France, developed in 1895 the first radiography room ever at the Hôtel-Dieu of Lyon, France. Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the X-rays in the same year, and Destot felt his discovery could revolutionize the approach of anatomy and traumatology. He studied wrist, ankle and calcaneus fractures, and described a new anatomy: "traumatic anatomy". For example, he focused on the posterior talar surface hollow in posterior tarsus fractures. He proposed the term of "thalamus" for this articular surface; this term is nowadays widely used by the clinicians. He introduced the term of "third malleolus" to describe the posterior part of the distal extremity of the tibia. He was the first author to analyze the normal and pathological movements of the scaphoid bone and the lunatum in wrist extension.