Dupuytren, Guillaume, Baron Dupuytren (1777-1835)

French physician who was chief surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris from 1815 until his death. He was renowned for his clinical skill and as a teacher of surgical techniques.

Dupuytren was born at Pierre-Buffière, Haute-Vienne. He struggled with poverty before winning a highly prized place to study anatomy in Paris in 1801. There he won a reputation as a tireless student, especially of morbid anatomy. He first joined the Hôtel-Dieu in 1808. His name is remembered in ‘Dupuytren's Contracture’, a benign thickening of the palmar fascia.