Toussaint-Dieudonné Sauveur
Toussaint-Dieudonné Sauveur (1766-1838), Professor of Pathology, Hygiene and Therapeutics at the Faculty of Medicine, is the first Rector of the University of Liège. At the time, the University had 259 students. The rector's office was held for one year, on a regular rotation between the four faculties: Medicine, Science, Law, Philosophy and Letters.
Born and died in Liège, Toussaint-Dieudonné Sauveur completed his early studies with the Oratorians in Visé, then Paris, before teaching at the congregation's colleges in Juilly, then Angers. He continued his medical studies in Paris during the revolutionary period, attending courses given by Portal and Corvisart, before taking refuge in Utrecht, where he obtained his diploma in 1793. On his return to Liège, he was employed at the Hôpital Saint-Abraham, before being appointed professor at the Lycée Impérial. In 1806, he was one of the founders of the Société des sciences physiques et médicales de Liège.
In 1816, he was commissioned by the King of Holland to take part in the drafting of the Belgian Pharmacopoeia, before being appointed President of the Medical Commission of the Province of Liège the following year. Appointed professor at the University of Liège as soon as it was founded, he was the first to hold the position of rector, a position he held again in 1829-1830.
His teaching encompassed pathology (general and internal) as well as hygiene and therapeutics. Proclaimed emeritus in 1835, following the reorganization of course curricula, he continued to run his private practice until his death in 1838.
Philippe Raxhon, Mémoire et prospective. Université de Liège (1817-2017), Presses universitaires de Liège, 2017, p. 32
Go to : Jean-Michel Vanderheyden
Illustration: Van Der Haert, after Barthélemy Vieillevoye, T.D. Sauveur, Docteur en Médecine, premier Recteur de l'Université de Liège, lithograph, s.d., Musée Wittert ULiège, inv. 2943.