Dr Robert Proust: a gynaecologist's contribution to world literature

Dr Robert Proust, though overshadowed in history by his more famous brother, the novelist Marcel Proust, was an eminent and innovative French surgeon who achieved recognition largely as a gynaecologist, but also was an accomplished urologist and general surgeon. He was the author of a textbook, The surgery of the female genital tract, that was very successful in his lifetime and ran to six editions. He was always very supportive of his brother's writing, and after Marcel's premature death Robert edited and arranged for publication of the final three volumes of his novel À la recherche du temps perdu, which has been called the greatest novel of the twentieth century.