Adrien Proust

Adrien Achille Proust (18 March 1834 – 26 November 1903) was a French epidemiologist and hygienist. He was the father of novelist Marcel Proust and doctor Robert Proust. He was a pioneer of public health and sanitary measures in France. He promoted the use of quarantines, sanitary measures, social distancing and cordons to control outbreaks of infectious disease. He was also involved in improving health among the working classes and studied a number of occupational diseases.

Biography Proust was born in Illiers where his parents were shopkeepers. A brilliant student, he was able to joint the faculty of medicine in Paris where obtained his medical doctorate in 1862. His dissertation was on idopathic pneumothorax. Beginning in 1863 he worked as chef de clinique, and in 1866 earned his agrégation with the thesis Des différentes formes de ramollissement du cerveau (On different forms of softening of the brain). He was a student of Pierre Fauvel. He qualified professeur agrégé to teach at the university and worked as a physician at the Charité Hospital. A cholera outbreak lead to his being assigned for a study. In 1869, he was sent on a mission to Russia and Persia in order to conduct cholera research – a journey in which he also visited Athens, Constantinople, Messina and several locations in Germany. On returning to Paris he married Jeanne-Cléméncé Weil and they would have two sons, Marcel and Robert. Painting of Proust in 1891 by Laure Brouardel, wife of the dean of the medical faculty Paul Brouardel. Proust was made inspector general of the sanitary services in 1884 and in 1885 he became a professor of hygiene at the faculty of medicine in Paris, and chief physician at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris. He was a member of the Comité d'Hygiène publique de France and of the Académie de médecine (from 1879), serving as its secretary from 1883 to 1888.

Proust attended the 11th International Sanitary Conference that was held in Paris. He gave the keynote lecture and sought to introduce several new regulations and the establishment of an international health organization in France based on the outcomes of the discussions held in October 1903. He died the next month from a stroke.The Office International d´Hygiène Publique was established in 1908 and was superseded by the World Health Organization after World War II.