Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/414

 FAGET

FAGET

Faget, Jean Charles (181S-1SS4).

The discovery of a definite, practi- cable pathognomonic sign of yellow fever by Dr. Faget in 1858 was as invaluable to the seacoast of North America and South America between north latitude 38 1/2 degrees to south latitude 36 degrees as that of Jenner on cow vaccine, or of Pasteur in serum therapy. It allowed an earlier diagnosis and stopped at once the long disputes regard- ing the confusion with malaria and the pernicious horror of many types of that disease.

Jean Charles Faget was born in New Orleans in 1818, of French parentage. After a most solid and careful educa- tion under the Jesuit Fathers he went to Paris for his medical education. After undergoing a rigid examination he be- came an interne in the French hospitals of Paris, and on finishing his studies graduated with great honor. His thesis, then received cum magnum laude, was on "Quelques faits anatomiques en faveur de la cystotomie sus-bubienne chez les tres jeunes enfants."

On his arrival in New Orleans, where he settled after graduation in 1845, he quickly entered into active practice. He did not find the field of the profes- sion barren of men with ability. There was then in the city a galaxy of distin- guished men, most of them graduates of " La Faculty de Paris." Men who after their splendid preparation in the hospitals and laboratories of Paris soon became brilliant practitioners in America, among them Drs. Charles Delery, Lambert, Labatut, Henri Ranc6, Beaugnot, and many others. Dr. Faget, though modest and retiring, was soon at the fore. Of course it was impossible for men of such ability and forcefulness to get along in perfect harmony and peace. Is it due to the newness of the country, or the greater

freedom or liberty of expression? What- ever it may be, our earlier masters were very prone to argumentation and to most active polemiques, a fact not to be regretted if kept within proper bounds, as great truths flashed from these very arguments and discussions. The combat- iveness of any country or people means success, growth and development.

When Dr. Faget joined La Soci&e' Meclicale de la Nouvelle-Orleans, he soon became a propagandist of the infec- tious school of the spread of disease, while his distinguished confreres, Charles Delery, Beaugnot and Ranc6 were of the contagionist school. It was dur- ing the interminable polemiques be- tween these scientists that most of the work and labor of these gentlemen was told, couched in language most polite, but with sarcasm most biting, while they broke their lances against one another, and enunciated their theories and related the facts they had as proofs.

Dr. Faget read many letters before the society, which were published in "La Gazette M^dicale," all to prove that the old school which believed that the natives never had yellow fever were wrong; that the yellow fever, which was diagnosed by them with the then specific symptoms of black vomit, was not yellow fever, but most often a pernicious malarial fever which, properly treated, answered to massive doses of quinine. Finally, on July 15, 1859, Faget proved the difference be- tween these cases and real yellow fever, a fever of one paroxysm with sometimes a remission, a flushed face, red gums, frequently hemorrhagic gums, point- ed coated tongue, red and thin at the edges, ushered by a chill at night. First day, high fever, pulse in propor- tion; second day, high fever and fall- ing pulse, some albumin in urine; third,