Octave Terrillon


Octave Roch Simon Terrillon was a French physician and surgeon, known as a pioneer of aseptic surgery.
From 1868 he worked as a hospital interne in Paris, where in 1873 he received his medical doctorate. In 1876 he qualified as a hospital surgeon, and eventually became associated with the Salpêtrière Hospital. In 1878 he became an associate professor at the faculty of medicine in Paris.
On April 13, 1957, a French postage stamp featuring a portrait of Dr. Terrillon was issued. Included on the stamp were images of a microscope, an autoclave and some surgical instruments.
Somewhere around 1882 he advocated the procedure of using boiling water, a heat sterilisation technique for disinfecting surgical instruments.

Selected works

Leçons de clinique chirurgicale professées à la Salpêtrière, 1889 - Lessons taught in the surgical clinic at the Salpêtrière.Traité des maladies du testicule et de ses annexes, 1889 - Treatise on testicular diseases.Asepsie et antisepsie chirurgicales, 1894 - Surgical asepsis and antisepsis.Salpingites et ovarites, 1891 - Salpingitis and ovaritis.