Jean-François Calot (17 May 1861 – 1 March 1944) was a French surgeon best known for describing treatment of curvature of the spine in Pott's disease. He also described a method of treating tuberculous abscesses and defined Calot's triangle.
Biography Calot was born in a farmer family of six children and spent his childhood in Arrens-Marsous, France. He received his bachelor's degree in 1880 at Saint-Pe de Bigorre and in 1881 moved to Paris, where he worked as a tutor to pay for his university education. While still a student he described Calot's triangle in his doctoral thesis, defended on 12 December 1890. He then worked as a surgeon at l'Hôpital Rotschild and l'Hôpital Cazin-Perrochaud in Berck. He described his technique for treating Pott's disease of the spine in a paper he read to the Academy of Medicine in Paris in 1896. Much of his work later in his career was in orthopaedic surgery, particularly the treatment of war injuries; he founded the Institut orthopédique de Berck in 1900.
Callot married Marie Bacqueville (1870–1934), and together they had four daughters.
Eponyms Calot's triangle – isosceles triangle bounded by the common hepatic duct, the cystic duct and the cystic artery; it remains an important landmark for surgeons performing cholecystectomy to avoid damaging the common bile duct. Calot's node – gallbladder lymph node. Calot's method – treatment of tuberculous abscesses by repeated puncture and immobilisation. Calot's operation – surgical correction of spinal deformity due to Pott's disease (spinal tuberculosis).
References gives birth date as 21 May
Philippe Loisel La Vie et l'OEuvre de François Calot, chirurgien orthopédiste de Berck (in French). Report presented at Société française d'Histoire de la Médecine on 18 March 1987.
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