French physicist and physician, D’ Arsonval was a pioneer in electrotherapy, he studied the medical application of high-frequency currents. Among his inventions were dielectric heating and various measuring devices, including the thermocouple ammeter and moving-coil galvanometer.
These measuring tools helped establish the science of
electrical engineering. d’Arsonval’s galvanometer, which he invented in 1882
for measuring weak electric currents, became the basis for almost all
panel-type pointer meters. He was also involved in the industrial application
of electricity.
Jaques-Arsene d’Arsonval was born on June 8, 1851 at the
Pigsty, canton Saint-Germain-les-Belles, in his family house of “Borie” known
from 14th century. His family had very old and noble roots. Nine children were
born in the family, but only two of them including Arsene survived. Arsene
d’Arsonval has studied in the Imperial College of Limoges (now LycEe
Gay-Lussac).
After the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 he went to Paris where
he met the famous physiologist Claude Bernard (1813-1878) and was drawn to
Bernard’s lectures at Sainte-Barbe college in Paris (the College bears
d’Arsonval’s name since 1959). d’Arsonval was Bernard’s prEparateur from 1873
to 1878. After Bernard’s death he assisted Charles-Edouard Brown-SEquard
(1817-1894), giving the latter’s winter courses, and eventually replaced him at
the College de France when Brown-SEquard died in 1894. The picture shows him as
a student in 1873.
His invention in 1882 with Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904)
and Deprez of what is now known as the Deprez-d'Arsonval galvanometer, came
after he had studied muscle contractions in frogs using a telephone, which
operates on an extremely feeble currents similar to animal electricity. He
demonstrated how a human being could conduct an alternating current strong
enough to light an electric lamp (1892).
In 1881, Arsène d'Arsonval first suggested harnessing the
temperature difference in the tropical seas for the generation of electricity.
His idea was given a first test by Georges Claude in Cuba in the 1920's, and
this technology is now ready for producing electricity from sea solar power. In
1902 d’Arsonval worked with Georges Claude on industrial methods for the
liquefaction of gases.
His contribution to medicine, now overshadowed by the
antibiotic era, created a minor revolution in clinical therapeutics. D’Arsonval
literally founded the paramedical field of physiotherapy. In 1918 he was
elected president of the Institute for Actinology.
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