[Tholozan: military physician]

Born in 1820 Joseph-Desire Tholozan joined in 1841 as "chirurgien sous-aide auxiliaire" the French military Health Service, being still a medical student in Marseille where the School of Medicine was directed by his uncle F. Cauviere. He was later appointed at the hospital of Bastia, obtained his M.D. (Paris 1843), went back to Marseille and later to Metz (1845) and Paris, at the Val-de-Grace (1846-47). He returned there as assistant physician (1851) and later as professor "agrege" of Medicine (1852), his agregation thesis devoted to hematology being presided by Andral. Tholozan later participated to the Crimean war (1854-55) during which he performed important observations on infectious diseases (cholera, dysentery, typhus, typhoid fever) or deficiency ones (scurvy, acrodynia). An unpublished report given here deals with a probable epidemic of murine typhus occurring in soldiers returning from Crimea on an American ship which had been used to transport horses. Promoted first class major physician (1857) Tholozan was chosen in 1858 by the French ministry of Foreign Affairs to become the physician of the Shah of Persia, Nasreddin Shah. In this country where he remained until his death (1897) he will have a threefold activity as organizer of the medical teaching, epidemiologist (of plague and cholera) and as a surgeon. Principal first class physician (the equivalent of Physician-Colonel) in 1868, he was definitely dismissed from the Army in 1880.