Victor Despeignes

Victor Despeignes (14 February 1866 – 30 July 1937) was a French physician. He was a pioneer in radiation oncology and possibly was the first person to use X-rays to treat cancer, which he did in July 1896 for a patient with stomach cancer. He was also the first physician to publish a paper on radiation therapy, in 1896, dealing with that case. This attempt was less than a year after the publication of the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen.

Personal life François Victor Despeignes was born in Lyon on 14 February 1866. He was buried at the cemetery in a small village in the Drôme Provençale called Vinsobres.

Cancer treatment Researchers had already discovered that X-rays could kill bacteria by 1896. The predominant theory at the time was that cancer was some kind of parasitic infection. Louis Charles Émile Lortet and Philibert Jean Victor Genoud tried to kill tuberculosis in infected guinea pigs using X-rays from March to June 1896 in the same city of Lyon. The tumor was about the size of the head of an eight-month-old fetus. Despeignes believed that cancer was caused by parasites, and that perhaps he could kill the parasite with radiation. The cancer had shrunk by about 50%. Malignancies were found to be the most amenable to X-ray treatment. They also found out the side effects.

Works "Nouveau régulateur pour étuve chauffée au pétrole" (New regulator for oven heated oil) Association Typographique, 1890 "A propos de la question des eaux de Lyon" (Concerning Lyon's waters) Association Typographique, Lyon, 1891

"Deux cas de kyste hydatique" (Τwo cases of hydatid cysts) 1903 with Ph. Genoud