Gabriel Nové-Josserand, co-founder of the SICOT

Gabriel Nové-Josserand (1868-1949) studied medicine in Lyon under Professor Louis Léopold Ollier at the very end of Ollier's career. He wrote his thesis on a subject close to his master's heart, bone growth disorders due to growth plate alteration, with an experimental and a clinical part, following the principles of Claude Bernard. In 1894, he came top in the first ever recruitment examination for surgeons in Lyon and became head of paediatric surgery at the Hôpital de la Charité, where he spent most of his surgical career. A brilliant and sought-after teacher, his work on congenital hip dislocation led to very early national and international recognition. After training with Lorenz in Vienna, he imported and improved on Lorenz's technique for surgical reduction, highlighting the importance of the labrum. He worked on a variety of conditions including tuberculous arthritis, coxalgia, poliomyelitis and clubfoot. He helped establish the French Society of Orthopaedics (Société Française d'Orthopédie) in 1918. In 1921, he became the first chair of paediatric surgery in Lyon, and in 1929, he and Prof. Louis Ombrédanne from Paris were among the ten French cofounders of the SICO(T), a society he chaired at its second conference in London in 1933. He was received on this occasion as an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. A brilliant surgeon with a keen analytical sense, he left his mark on the Lyon school of orthopaedic surgery founded by his mentor, Ollier, which he helped to perpetuate.