Gabriel Andral

Who was Gabriel Andral?

Gabriel Andral was a distinguished French pathologist and a professor at the University of Paris.

In 1828 Andral was appointed professor of hygiene, and in 1839 succeeded François-Joseph-Victor Broussais as chairman of general pathology and therapy, a position he held for 27 years. In 1823 he became a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1849.

Andral is remembered for his pioneer investigations of blood chemistry. He is considered to be the founder of scientific hematology, and is credited with its integration into clinical and analytical medicine. With his colleague, Louis Denis Jules Gavarret, he performed extensive studies of blood composition. They demonstrated that blood composition varies in different pathological conditions, and their findings showed the importance of blood chemistry as a means of confirming diagnoses.

Andral's crowning written achievement was Clinique médicale, a five-volume work that discussed almost every facet of medicine known at the time. It was an exhaustive summary of French medicine and its development in the early part of the 19th century.