Henry Duret (1849-1921): a surgeon and forgotten neurologist

Henri Duret (1849-1921) was a surgeon whose training started in the laboratory of Jean-Martin Charcot and Alfred Vulpian at La Salpêtrière in 1874. Using injections of colored gelatine, Duret was the first to describe the distribution of supply arteries in the brainstem and then in the cortex. His descriptions correlated irrigated territories, infarcted zones and secondary neurological deficits. He focused his 1878 thesis on experimental studies of brain trauma and localized the origin of disturbances in autonomic function and vigilance to the brainstem. He linked these disturbances to microhemorrhages affecting the medulla and pons, which are now known as Duret hemorrhages. Over 40 years, he authored numerous publications on digestive and gynecological surgery and on teaching in these areas. In 1905, another of his innovative works was published, which covered brain tumours, their clinical manifestations, the pathophysiological consequences of intracranial hypertension and the corresponding surgical treatments. This little-known treatise is in fact a pioneering work in neurosurgery, published well before the more familiar works of Victor Horsley and Harvey Cushing.