Vicq d'Azyr received his medical education at Caen and Paris, being awarded his M.D. in 1774. Before the Revolution he was personal physician to Marie Antoinette. He had a life-long interest in comparative anatomy, believing that veterinary and human medicine were mutually beneficial. Much of his work was based on the comparative method of analogous organs and functions in a series of animals. As permanent secretary of the Société royale de médecine from 1778, he reorganized the structure of medical practice and education in France, both before and after the Revolution. Vicq d'Azyr made important contributions to neuroanatomy in his Traité d'anatomie et de physiologie (Paris, 1786). He recognized for the first time many of the cerebral convolutions, along with various internal structures of the brain. This book reflects the most accurate neurological work performed before the advent of microscopic staining techniques. Intended to be the first in a series on the whole of anatomy and physiology, it was illustrated with thirty-four colour aquatints, by Angélique Briceau. The aquatints, which give the impression of watercolours, were much admired and were copied by other authors. Robert Knox, for example, in his reproductions of Scarpa's Engravings of the nerves, added supplementary plates by Soemmering and Vicq d'Azyr. To the six volumes of his Oeuvres was added a volume of forty-seven engraved plates, but they were uncoloured and did not include all the original illustrations.
