Just Lucas-Championnière

Life & Legacy

Just-Marie-Marcellin Lucas-Championnière (15 August 1843, in Avilly-Saint-Léonard – 22 October 1913, in Paris) was a French surgeon.
From 1860 he studied medicine in Paris, receiving his medical doctorate in 1870 and his agrégation in 1874. In 1874 he qualified as a hospital surgeon, and during his career was associated with the hospitals Cochin, Lariboisière, Tenon, Saint-Louis, Beaujon and Hôtel-Dieu in Paris. In 1906 he retired as a hospital surgeon.
While still a student, he traveled to Glasgow in order to study antisepsis under Joseph Lister. Subsequently, he introduced antiseptic surgery to France, publishing an important work on the subject in 1876 that was later translated into English. He also made significant contributions in his work involving bone fractures and hernias. In his research of trepanation, he showed that prehistoric flint tools could make trephine holes in a skull in less than 50 minutes.
In 1885 he became a member of the Académie de Médecine. For a number of years he was editor of the Journal de médecine et de chirurgie pratiques.