Biography
Louis was born in Ay, Champagne, the son of a wine merchant. He grew up during the French Revolution and initial thought to study law, later switching to medicine, graduating in 1813. His initial studies were in Reims, but he completed them in Paris.
Louis married late in life, having a single son (Armand) who died of tuberculosis while still a boy in 1854, and Louis retired from medical practice the same year. Charles Sumner, who visited Louis and observed him teaching at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, described him as "a tall man, with a countenance that seems quite passive." Louis also taught at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, also in Paris, and counted Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. as one of his students.
Read more about this topic: Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis
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