Claude Pouteau (born August 14, 1724, in Lyon, and died February 10, 1775, in the same city) was a French surgeon and inventor.
He succeeded Pierre Grassot as major surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu and continued, like the latter, to promote vaccination against smallpox.
Pouteau made numerous observations on cancer, on fire in the treatment of rheumatism and other diseases,[6] on the properties of the pores of the skin, on pulmonary tuberculosis and on the rickets.
A century before Ignaz Semmelweis, Pouteau understood that, in hospitals, infection was not transmitted only through the air, but through direct contact with the surgeon's hands, dressings and instruments.
[7] It's not just the unsanitary air that he blames for cases of gangrene or "pourriture d'hôpital" ("hospital rot") (which often turned minor injuries into serious disabilities).