Maurice Chevassu (1877-1957): a pioneer of the study and therapy of testicular neoplasms.
Chevassu was born in Lons le Saunier in 1877. In 1910 he became assistant professor of surgery and he was entrusted with the lectures on diseases of the urinary tract. He owes the fact that he became an urologist to the serious illness of Albarran, who had since 1906 replaced Guyon in Necker in the Department of Urology. From 1919 to 1933 Chevassu was the director of the surgical clinic established in Cochin. He became professor of surgical pathology in 1933 and he took up the chair devoted to diseases of the urinary tract existing in Necker, succeeding the retiring Marion. He transferred the Necker Urological Clinic in Cochin. In 1945 he retired with the title of honorary professor. He died in 1957 in Paris, having been honored with numerous distinctions for his scientific work and his contribution to urology. Chevassu's quite extensive work was dominated by his interest in the study and therapy of testicular cancer. In 1906, based on the detailed histological study of 128 cases of testicular neoplasms, he gave for the first time a complete and simple categorisation of testicular cancers in his treatise of 239 pages, entitled "Testicular Tumors". According to this work, he recognized two prevailing types of testicular neoplasms : 1) seminomas (tumour or seminoma of Chevassu) originating from the spermatic line and 2) the mixed tumours growing from foreign tissue existing in the testis, due to an anomaly of fetal growth. In his treatise he doubted the effectiveness of simple orchiectomy and suggested the removal of the testis together with its vascular stem, followed by total removal of the lymph nodes (operation of Chevassu). The technique of Chevassu was adopted by many great surgeons such as Gregoire, Cuneo, Gosset, Descomps, who made it so popular, that it is the normal surgical therapy for testicular cancer even to the present day.
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Institute of History of Medicine, University Claude Bernard, Lyon, France.