[Fallot and his tetralogy].

Etienne-Louis Arthur Fallot's (1850-1911) private and professional life were restricted to Marseille. He described a tetralogy of cardiac abnormalities that often underlies cyanosis ('maladie bleue') in children and young adults: stenosis of the pulmonary artery, defect in the interventricular septum, hypertrophy of the right ventricle and overriding aorta. This combination had been described several times before, but Fallot was the first to recognise the consistency and pathophysiological interrelationship of the four abnormalities.