P.J. Desault and the birth of nephrology (between 1785 and 1795).

Desault's genius and methods opened up a field: the medical diseases of the urinary tract. Though he was a surgeon and therefore an anatomically based clinician, his most important contributions were in renal pathophysiology: separation of diseases regarding the formation of urine from those regarding the excretion; comparison of anuria with urine retention; polyuria of atrophic kidney; fatal dehydration due to polyuria in diabetic patients; oligo anuria following excess waterloss from the gut, the lungs...etc. In the last two conditions the kidneys might look normal and therefore might be presumed healthy. If Desault's work had survived this physiological eruption into renal disorders would have been a definitive step of modern nephrology. From a historical point of view, one could suspect that Bichat shifted from anatomy and surgery to medicine and physiology after having posthumously compiled and edited the Desault's book, "Traité des Maladies des voies urinaires".