Jacques Daviel (1696-1762) and the Competition to Extract Cataracts: A Reappraisal

To analyze the timing and interactions among Jacques Daviel (1696-1762) and other Paris-based surgeons who pursued cataract extraction in the mid-18^th century.

Historical books, newspapers, and manuscripts were reviewed.

The claim of English oculist John Taylor that his visit to Daviel's hometown of Marseille in 1734 inspired Daviel to become an ophthalmologist is supported by contemporaneous evidence. In 1745, while in Marseille, Jacques Daviel switched from a single-instrument couching technique to a two-instrument technique. By September of 1748, while in Paris, Daviel had extracted remnants of a cataract from the posterior chamber following a failed couching. On July 1, 1750, a surgeon and monk named Jean Baseilhac (1703-1781), known as Frère Côme, was said to have performed cataract extraction through an incision in the center of the cornea. On July 3, 1750, in Paris, surgeon Natale Pallucci (1719-1797), made a corneal incision and extracted from the posterior chamber cataract fragments which remained after couching. For four months, beginning on July 7, 1750, in Leuven, Daviel experimented with planned cataract extraction in animals. On Sep. 18, 1750, in Cologne, Daviel performed a planned, primary cataract extraction on a cleric named Gilles Noupres.

Jacques Daviel became an ophthalmologist in 1734 and secondarily extracted lens fragments by 1748. Three Paris-based eye surgeons, including Daviel, pursued the development of cataract extraction beginning in the first week of July 1750. The first contemporaneously documented planned cataract extraction through an incision was performed by Daviel in Cologne on Sep. 18, 1750.

Three Paris-based surgeons, including Jacques Daviel, began to pursue cataract extraction in the first week of July 1750.