Antoine Laurent Bayle

Who was Antoine Laurent Bayle?

Antoine Laurent Jessé Bayle was a French physician born in Le Vernet, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. He was a nephew to pathologist Gaspard Laurent Bayle.

He studied medicine in Paris, and worked as an interne under Antoine-Athanase Royer-Collard at the Charenton mental asylum. Later he became an associate professor and deputy librarian of the Faculté de Médecine de Paris. He resigned from this position in 1834 and opened a private practice.

In 1822 Bayle was the first physician to provide a comprehensive description of general paresis, which is sometimes referred to as paralytic dementia, general paralysis of the insane, or "maladie de Bayle" in medical literature. In 1824 he founded the journal Revue médicale, and from 1828 to 1837 was publisher of the multi-volume Bibliothèque de thérapeutique.