Louis Joseph Seutin was a Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 doctor

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, surgeon

Surgery

Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

 and professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at the Université Libre de Bruxelles

Université Libre de Bruxelles

The Université libre de Bruxelles is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. It has 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and an equally cosmopolitan staff.-Name:...

.

Louis Joseph Ghislain Seutin born in Nivelles

Nivelles

Nivelles is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. The Nivelles municipality includes the old communes of Baulers, Bornival, Thines, and Monstreux....

, he studied medicine and took part in the Battle of Waterloo

Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 as a doctor. After the Belgian Revolution

Belgian Revolution

The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the Southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and established an independent Kingdom of Belgium....

 in 1830, he became the personal doctor of king Leopold I

Leopold I of Belgium

Leopold I was from 21 July 1831 the first King of the Belgians, following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...

 and Head Doctor of the Belgian army

Belgian Army

The Land Component is organised using the concept of capacities, whereby units are gathered together according to their function and material. Within this framework, there are five capacities: the command capacity, the combat capacity, the support capacity, the services capacity and the training...

. He was later made a baron for his services.

He became Head Surgeon of St. Peters Hospital and a professor of surgery in 1834.

He invented the use of starched bandages. Seutin had travelled through Russia demonstrating his starched bandage, and his technique had been adopted by both the Russian army and navy by 1837. And, in 1848, was the first to use chloroform

Chloroform

Chloroform is an organic compound with formula CHCl3. It is one of the four chloromethanes. The colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid is a trihalomethane, and is considered somewhat hazardous...

 for anaesthesia. His treatment of open fractures was revolutionary. By improving hygiene

Hygiene

Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...

, he also drastically reduced the number of women who died in childbirth.

He became a senator for the Liberal Party

Liberal Party (Belgium)

The Liberal Party was a Belgian political party that existed from 1846 until 1961, when it became the Party for Freedom and Progress, Partij voor Vrijheid en Vooruitgang/Parti de la Liberté et du Progrès or PVV-PLP, under the leadership of Omer Vanaudenhove.-History:The Liberal Party was founded...

 in 1853.

Baron Seutin Commander of the Order of Leopold (Ordre de Léopold), who converted to homeopathy to become the founder of the «Belgian Homeopathic Magazine».

Seutin died in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 on 29 January 1862, and is buried in Laeken Cemetery

Laeken Cemetery

The Laeken Cemetery , located in Laeken in the northern part of Brussels, is one of the major cemeteries in Belgium.-Description:...

.

Major works

• Du bandage amidonné ou, recueil de toutes les pièces composées sur ce bandage depuis son invention jusqu'a ce jour. Bruxelles: J.B.Tircher, 362 p., 1840.

• Traité de la méthode amovo-inamovible, comprenant des recherches historiques sur l'origine et la constitution de cette méthode; l'exposé de ses principes, de ses caractères et de ses procédés; et ses applications cliniques aux divers ordres de lésions et maladies chirurgicales (347 p. ill., 1851).

Source

• Louis-Joseph Seutin
• De Paepe, Jean-Luc, Raindorf-Gérard, Christiane (ed.), Le Parlement Belge 1831-1894. Données Biographiques, Brussels, Académie Royale de Belgique, 1996, p. 506-507.
• Douxchamps, José, Présence nobiliaire au parlement belge (1830–1970), Notes généalogiques, Wépion-Namur, José Douxchamps, 2003, p. 119-120.