Joseph Rollet

He was the first to separate chancroid and indurated syphilitic chancre and established that the incubation period for syphilis was three weeks.

He hoped to become a surgeon at Hôtel Dieu but finally was admitted to the École de Antiquaille in 1850.

He was able to demonstrate that Philippe Ricord had confounded two diseases, the infection caused by a combination of Treponema pallidum and Haemophilus ducreyi, and true syphilis.

They had a son who became an ophthalmologist and a daughter who in her second marriage wed Alexandre Lacassagne, a forensic medicine pioneer.

Rollet died suddenly, he was to deliver a speech the next day while presiding over the Congress of Dermato-venerology in Lyon.