BOYER, Alexis, a distinguished French surgeon, was born on the 1st of March 1757, at Uzerches in the Limousin. His father was in the humble station of a tailor; and the son received the elements of a medical education in the shop of a barber-surgeon in a provincial town. His early talents induced his friends to procure his removal to Paris, where he had the good fortune to attract the notice of his two distinguished masters Louis and Desault; and his unwearied perseverance, his anatomical skill, and finally his dexterity as an operator, became so conspicuous, that at the age of thirty-seven he obtained the appointment of second surgeon to the Hôtel Dieu of Paris, and was elected professor of operatic surgery in L'École de Santé. This latter appointment he soon exchanged for the chair of clinical surgery; a department in which his manual dexterity and his admirable lectures on surgical diseases gained him the highest reputation, and introduced him to extensive practice. Perhaps no French surgeon of his time thought or wrote with greater clearness and good sense than Boyer; and while his natural modesty made him distrustful of innovation, and somewhat tenacious of established modes of treatment, he was as judicious in his diagnosis, as cool and skilful in manipulating, as he was cautious in forming his judgment on individual cases.
In 1805 Napoleon nominated him imperial family surgeon; and, after the brilliant campaigns of 1806-7, made him a member of the legion of honour, and conferred on him the title of Baron of the Empire, with a salary of 25,000 francs (L.1042). On the fall of Napoleon, the modest merits of Boyer secured him the favour of the succeeding sovereigns of France, and he was consulting-surgeon to Louis XVIII., to Charles X., and to Louis Philippe. In 1835 he succeeded Deschamps as surgeon-in-chief to the Hôpital de la Charité, and was chosen a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France; while various scientific, national, and foreign societies enrolled him in their lists. But honours and emoluments could not console Boyer for the loss of a beloved wife. From the period of her death his health began visibly to decline; and he terminated his mortal career on November 23, 1833, at the age of seventy-six.
Boyer was of a cheerful temper, unassuming and simple in his manners, and studied a genteel economy which enabled him to exhibit many traits of generosity to others. His two great works are, Traité complet de l'Anatomie, in 4 vols. 8vo, published in 1797-99; of which a fourth edition appeared in 1815; and Traité des Maladies Chirurgicales, et des opérations qui leur concèdent, in 11 vols. 8vo, 1814-26. Of this work a new edition called the 5th, with additions by M. Ph. Boyer, in 7 vols., was published in 1844-53. (r. 8. 7.)