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.Hugh James Rose, A New General Biographical Dictionary, 1848 4:484, s.v.
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, , and Antoine Petit. He was opposed to inoculation against smallpox. He championed Virginia polygala or Seneka as a remedy for snakebite.Alexander Chalmers, The General Biographical Dictionary etc., 6:247
Although he was able and learned, he is perhaps best known for his witticisms.Gaston de Lévis, Souvenirs et portraits, 1780-1789, 1813, p. 240
Witticisms
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; it is also often attributed to people who never said it. The quip may have been inspired by a similar 17th-century anecdote about a doctor whose reputation was transient.; quoting from Manuscript Fr. 25645 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, p. 13
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:
Early life
Bouvart's father Claude was a physician.Guénet, Eloge historique Michel-Philippe received his medical degree in Reims in 1730 and practiced in Chartres. In 1736, he left for Paris.
Bibliography Antoine Jean Baptiste Maclou Guenet, Éloge historique de Michel-Philippe Bouvart, chez Quillau, Paris, 1787 full text Nicolas de Condorcet, Éloge de M. Bouvart, dans Éloges des académiciens de l'Académie royale des sciences, morts depuis l'an 1783, chez Frédéric Vieweg, Brunswick et Paris, 1799, full text Dezobry et Bachelet, Dictionnaire de biographie 1 Delagrave, 1876, p. 359 Jean Baptiste Glaire, vicomte , Joseph Chantrel, Encyclopédie catholique, 1842 full text. Bibliothèque chartraine, dans Mémoires de la Société archéologique de l'Orléanais 19:51-53, 1883 full text
Notes