Justin Benoît


Justin Benoît was a French physician and anatomist.

Biography

Son of Guillaume Benoît and Marie Cabantous, Justin Benoît married Héloïse-Mira Cavalier, daughter of Jacques Cavalier, notary, and Louise Vernet. The Benoît couple had four children, including a daughter, Caroline Benoît, who married General François Perrier in 1872.
Justin Benoit was an active and life-long member of the Reformed Church of Montpellier. He was elected to the Presbyteral Council of the Temple in rue Maguelone, of which he was secretary from 1874 to 1881.

Professional life

After being appointed by competitive examination as a student of the “École pratique d'anatomie et de médecine opératoire” and after spending seventeen months as a hospital student in the hospitals of Montpellier, he became an intern at the hospital of Nîmes in 1835. On 20 December 1836, he became an intern at the Montpellier Hospitals and then at the Saint-Eloi Hospital.
Doctor of Medicine in April 1839, he was admitted to the agrégation of the surgical section in 1844 after submitting his first aggregation thesis on 27 December 1842. That same year, he became a practitioner in the “Œuvre de la Miséricorde” in Montpellier, he also took charge of the medical service of the garrisons of Nîmes and then Montpellier.
He was curator of the anatomy collections of the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier from 1850 to 1853. In 1851 he inaugurated the new buildings of the present Anatomical Museum.
At the Faculty of Medicine, he served as a substitute, then obtained the chair of anatomy in 1853. He held this position until his retirement in November 1886. During the Crimean War he was head of the military ambulance service. In 1880, he was elected dean of the faculty for five years and advocated moving the former St. Eloi Hospital out of the city.
Retired in 1886, he died on 6 November 1893. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery of Montpellier.

Works

  • .
  • Autoplastie de la main.
  • Consultation sur un cas d'hermaphrodisme.
  • De l'Efficacité du traitement arabique dans les syphilis invétérées et dans plusieurs autres maladies diathétiques rebelles.
  • De l'influence de l'air et des aliments dans le traitement des maladies chirurgicales.
  • De l'Insalubrité de l'hôpital Saint-Éloi de Montpellier, de la nécessité de le remplacer par un hôpital offrant de meilleures conditions hygiéniques.

    Distinctions

  • Officer of the Legion of Honour
  • Officer of the Brazilian Order of the Rose
  • Officer of the Ordre des Palmes académiques
  • Member of the from 1847.
  • Member of the to which he sent many works.

    Legacy

  • A street bears his name in Millau : impasse Doyen Justin Benoît.
  • The painter made a portrait of him