or PETITE, a French word signifying little or small.

PETITE Guerre, denotes the operations of detached parties, and the war of poils. See WAR, Part III.

PETIT Sergeant. See Sergeant.

PETIT Treason. See Treason.

(John Lewis), an eminent surgeon, born at Paris in 1674. He had so early an inclination to surgery, that Mr Littre, a celebrated anatomist, being in his father's house, he regularly attended that gentleman's lectures, from his being seven years of age. He was received master in surgery in the year 1700; and acquired such reputation in the practice of that art, that in 1726 the king of Poland sent for him to his court, and in 1734 the king of Spain prevailed on him to go into that kingdom. He restored the health of those princes; and they endeavoured to detain him by offering him great advantages, but he chose rather to return to France. He was received into the academy of sciences in 1715; became director of the royal academy of surgery; made several important discoveries; and invented new instruments for the improvement of surgery. He died at Paris in 1750. He wrote an excellent Treatise on the Diseases of the Bones, the best edition of which is that of 1733; and many learned Dissertations in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, and in the first volume of the Memoirs of Surgery.