Pierre Salomon Ségalas d’Etchepare (1792-1875)

Pierre Salomon Ségalas d’Etchepare was born on 1 August 1792 at Saint Palais, a small village in the French Department of Basses Pyrénées. He studied medicine in Paris and graduated with the thesis “Quelques reflexions sur la certitude et l’utilité de la Médicine” in 1817.

Ségalas got the “venia legendi” and was appointed associate professor at the Parisian faculty of medicine in 1823. Shortly after, he became fellow of the famous Académie de Médecine. The range of his medical experience was wide: medicine and surgery, orthopaedics, traumatology, physiology and diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. However, his main interest was urology.

Amongst others, Ségalas suggested a screw-device for lithotrity which was going to replace the hammer-principle. This idea was adopted by his contemporary Nicolas Heurteloup. In 1826, he presented his instrument for endoscopy, which he named speculum urethro-cystique, to the Académie des Sciences in Paris.

Pierre Salomon Ségalas was also devoted to healthcare policy. As a member of several municipal councils his experience and expertise was in high demand. Ségalas was a member of the Conseil Général de la Seine, the Conseil Général de Paris as well as the Conseil de Surveillance de l’Assistance Publique.

In 1829 he married Augustine Ribollet in Paris. Ségalas died on 19 October 1875 at Saint-Vallerin in the Department of Saôn-et-Loire. Pierre Salomon Ségalas is buried at Père Lachaise in Paris.

Source: Sergio Musitelli, Who was Who in European Urology. EAU Historical Committee