Morabia A
Division D'Epidémiologie Clinique, Génève, Switzerland.
J Clin Epidemiol. 1996 Dec;49(12):1327-33. doi: 10.1016/s0895-4356(96)00294-6.
Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (1787-1872) has been the direct or indirect mentor of influential U.S. and English scientists in public health, epidemiology, medicine, and biostatistics during the 19th and 20th century. Louis was primarily a clinician, but his name has been more closely associated with the history of epidemiology. There is an imbalance between the fame of Louis's scientific contribution and the scarcity of in depth analyses of his work. The controversy related to the usage of bloodletting for treating inflammatory diseases is one of the most famous episodes of Louis's work. A modern analysis of Louis's data confirms his original conclusions; that is, early bloodletting seems to reduce the duration of a pneumonitis disease in patients who survive from this disease but may also increase the overall short-term mortality. Some basic algebraic mistakes in computations of means tend to attenuate the verdict against bloodletting, but these are trivial relative to the rigor of the overall demonstration and to Louis's methodological contribution to clinical observation. Louis firmly belongs to the history of epidemiology. He deserves a similar place in the history of medicine.
皮埃尔·查尔斯·亚历山大·路易（1787 - 1872）在19世纪和20世纪一直是美国和英国公共卫生、流行病学、医学及生物统计学领域有影响力的科学家的直接或间接导师。路易主要是一名临床医生，但他的名字与流行病学历史联系更为紧密。路易的科学贡献之声誉与其作品深入分析之稀缺存在失衡。与使用放血疗法治疗炎症性疾病相关的争议是路易作品中最著名的事件之一。对路易数据的现代分析证实了他最初的结论；也就是说，早期放血似乎能缩短肺炎患者的病程，但也可能增加总体短期死亡率。均值计算中的一些基本代数错误往往会削弱对放血疗法的负面评价，但相对于整体论证的严谨性以及路易对临床观察的方法学贡献而言，这些错误微不足道。路易在流行病学历史中有着稳固的地位。他在医学史上也应享有类似的地位。
