Pierre-Hubert Nysten

Who was Pierre-Hubert Nysten?

Pierre-Hubert Nysten was a Belgian-French physiologist and pediatrician who was a native of Liège. He studied medicine in Paris, and subsequently became a professor at the École de Médecine in Paris.

With Marie François Xavier Bichat, Nysten performed pioneer experiments in cardiology, including the effects of galvanic current on the heart. From 1805 he studied silkworm diseases in southern France, and provided an early description of polyhedrosis. He also described symptoms associated with albuminuria, and in 1811 provided a scientific description of rigor mortis. The eponymous "Nysten's Law" defines the progressive states of cadaveric rigidity during rigor mortis.

In 1810 with Joseph Capuron, he published the second edition of the Nouveau dictionnaire de médecine, de chirurgie, de physique, de chimie et d'histoire naturelle, and in 1814 Nysten published a revised edition of the dictionary.