https://doi.org/10.1177/1553350617702310 Surgical Innovation 2017, Vol. 24(4) 402–404 © The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1553350617702310 journals.sagepub.com/home/sri History of Innovation Louis-Léopold-Xavier-Édouard Ollier (1830-1900) (Figure 1) was from an old medical family and was born on December 2, 1830, in a small village of Ardèche, the Vans. He began his medical studies in Montpellier. On November 24, 1851, he passed the exams for his medical license, being the first among all the interns at all of Lyon’s hospitals. On May 10, 1856, he defended his the- sis in Montpellier on the intimate structure of cancerous tumors, but the same year failed to became chief surgeon at the hospital Charité of Lyon. Nevertheless, he suc- ceeded in becoming the chief surgeon at the hospital Hôtel Dieu of Lyon in March 1860. The death of his pre- decessor, René Baumers (1823-1862), allowed him to take office on January 1, 1863, at the age of 33. Ollier was a pioneer of experimental surgery, and his work Traité expérimental et clinique de la régénération des os was awarded by the French Academy of Sciences. In 1878, he was appointed professor of clinical surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of Lyon, holding the second chair of clinical surgery from 1878 to 1900, working at the same time as chief surgeon at Hôtel Dieu until his death in 1900. 1 He significantly advanced bone and joint surgery by the development of the technique of subperiosteal resec- tion. In 1894, he directed the operation that tried to save the life of president Marie François Sadi Carnot (1837- 1894), assassinated in Lyon. He was skillful and an experimenter surgeon (Figure 2). He fixed the laws of bone growth in length and thickness and traced the first paths of reaching the joints by advocating joint resec- tions as conservative treatment. His work Traité des résections (3 volumes, 1853-1891) 2 is the sum of his experimental and clinical studies and is the basis of the 702310SRI XX X 10.1177/1553350617702310Surgical InnovationLaios et al research-article 2017 1 Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece 2 Henry Dunant Hospital, Athens, Greece Corresponding Author: Konstantinos Laios, Athinodorou 1, Kato Petralona, 11853 Athens, Attiki, Greece. Email: konstlaios@gmail.com Louis-Léopold-Xavier-Édouard Ollier (1830-1900): An Innovative Orthopedic Surgeon Konstantinos Laios, MD, PhD 1 , Konstantinos Markatos, MD, PhD 2 , and George Androutsos, MD, PhD 1 Abstract Louis-Léopold-Xavier-Édouard Ollier (1830-1900) was a pioneer in orthopedics considered as the founder of modern orthopedic surgery. He was a skillful and experimenter surgeon. He invented many new surgical techniques in orthopedic surgery and many new surgical instruments. His most known discovery is Ollier’s disease. Keywords orthopedic surgery, joints, Ollier’s disease, Lyon Figure 1. Louis-Léopold-Xavier-Édouard Ollier (1830-1900).