[Pierre J. Desault and the birth of nephrology 1785-1795]

Desault's genius and methods opened up a new field, the pathology of those medical conditions which afflict the urinary apparatus. Though he was a surgeon and therefore an anatomically based clinician, his most important discoveries were in pathological physiology, the polyuria of atrophic kidneys, the fatal dehydratation which follows the various forms of polyuric diabetes, and the oligo-anurias which follow excess water loss from the gut, the lungs ... etc. In the last two conditions the kidneys might look normal and therefore might be presumed normal. If Desault's work had survived this physiological eruption into renal disorders would have been the first decisive step of modern nephrology. His message, though excellent, was delivered too soon and on barren soil, to poorly educated physicians who paid little attention. But then, one has to remember that Desault was just a surgeon!