Dominique Jean Larrey was born on 8.7.1766 as son of a Schumacher in Beaudéan, a small Pyrenean village. He died at the age of 76 on 25 July 1842 in Lyon. Larrey was a French military doctor and surgeon. He made it up to the Oberfeldscher of the Great Army of Napoleon I. and also became Napoleon's personal physician.
On 12 February 1812 Larrey was appointed Chief Surgeon for the Russian campaign of 1812. His speed as a surgeon was legendary, a great advantage in the age before anaesthesia technology. There are reports of 234 amputations of frozen extremities, which Larrey performed himself in 24 hours during the winter battle at Preußisch-Eylau in February 1807. Larrey discovered the anaesthetic effect of the cold. After Larrey the trigonum sternocostale was named Larrey's cleft. It forms the passage point for the left-sided arteria epigastrica superior and the vena epigastrica superior through the diaphragm.
The term "shock" also goes back to this great French surgeon. Larrey observed that soldiers became circulatory unstable after blunt trauma to the abdominal region (French choc) and may also die (due to internal blood loss).