Lazare Rivière

Lazare Rivière (September 1589 - 16 April 1655) was a French physician who made influential contributions to early modern medicine. During his career he specialized in pharmacology, anatomy, and surgery and was the first physician to describe aortic valve inflammation. He was a leading professor at the University of Montpellier and passed his baccalaureate on 28 January 1608. Rivière received his medical license in late 1610 or early 1611 before he received his doctorate in the middle of 1611 after writing his dissertation. He turned down job offers by the University of Toulouse and University of Bologna to focus his research and work in Montpellier, He later became a physician to King Louis XIII of France.

Rivière is credited as the first physician to describe aortic valve disease.

Rivière specialized in pharmacology and strongly believed most illnesses required aggressive medicinal treatment. He created a variety of potions and drugs he used as medicines and collected around four hundred "very remarkable cures" from his practice and others'. He became known for a concoction used to treat venereal disease called "Potio Rivierii" or "Rivière's potion," which featured burdock as a main ingredient and was used as a folk remedy for centuries afterwards. which was a mixture of coffee and lime designed to prevent vomiting. Rivière also used laudanum, a mixture of opium and wine, to treat severe pain. antimony,

Personal life Rivière converted to Catholicism around the time he was appointed Chair of Surgery and Pharmacy at the University of Montpellier. and gained audiences in both France (1640 - 1655) A series of 17 books discussing different fields of medicine and medical theories of the time. and English by Nicholas Culpeper, Peter Cole, Abdiah Cole, and William Rowland during the 17th Century. After Rivière's death, they were reprinted often into the mid-18th Century. (1645) Observationes medicæ et curationes insignes Quibus Accesserunt Observationes ab aliis comunicatæ (1646) Institutiones medicæ (1655) (1674) An encyclopedia of various diseases, conditions, treatments, and events. The first edition was published in 1674 and it was reprinted until 1737. (1680)