A Famous Seychellois Doctor in the USA

By Julien Durup, a student of history

Who was this humble mechanic that became a famous surgeon and also a physician? He was in fact Louis Gaston Labat born on 11 December 1876 at Victoria, Mahé, Seychelles even though the registration of his birth is in the 1877 register. The son of Simeon Labat of Mauritius and Euphrasie Pontré of the Seychelles; Pontré’s family was well established at that time in the Seychelles. His parent was married in a Port Louis, Mauritius on 29 November 1873.  They had two more children born previously in Mauritius and two excluding Gaston in the Seychelles, Aimée Louis and Marie Euphrasie.

Louis Gaston Labat MD. Reprinted with the kind permission from Wood Library Museum of Anaesthesiology, Illinois, USA.
Louis Gaston Labat MD. Reprinted with the kind permission
from Wood Library Museum of Anaesthesiology, Illinois, USA.

 

In the Seychelles his father was a trader and he accidently died at sea near North Island on 4 July 1883 at the age of 35 years old. After his tragic death his wife decided to sail back to Mauritius on board the Laconia with her children all under  7 years old. From Mauritius the family went to Durban and stayed for two years with Gaston’s uncle who was a businessman in South Africa, where Gaston completed his primary education. In 1877 the family went back to Mauritius where he studied at the Royal College of Port Louis until 1895. In 1894, he graduated with honors from the Royal College of Mauritius where he earned certificates in English, French, statics, dynamics, hydrostatics, pure mathematics, and practical chemistry. He was a bright student whose aim was to become an engineer. On 24 February 1902, in marrying Anne Marie Marguerite Brunaud, his plan changed. He took a job with a court in Mapou and Pamplemousses and occupied the post of “permanent writer” fso that he could earn enough money to maintain her. Their marriage was unsettled and Gaston changed his mind and started work with a local garage with the hope of becoming an engineer. He left his wife and went to Mozambique to learn engineering in the sugar industry. Upon his return to Mauritius after the death of his mother, he received money from the property and business from the Seychelles. Soon after he partnered with his brother-in-law  Raoul Rochecouste, a qualified chemist, to open a drugstore in Desforges Road and later another at 5 rue Royale at Port Louis where he became an assistant chemist at the store named “Pharmacie Nouvelle”.

While at the “Pharmacie Nouvelle” he met and befriended a famous Mauritian Dr Joseph Anthony Ferrière whose consultation room was on top of the “Pharmacie Nouvelle”, and who was also running a private clinic at Les Casernes.  As a good mechanic, Gaston repaired Dr Ferrière’s car. After seeing the extant of Gaston’s talents Dr Ferrière convinced him to take up medical studies. He sold his shares in “Pharmacie Nouvelle” and went to Montpellier, France, where he obtained his baccalaureate in 1913.

‘Pharmacie Nouvelle’ 5 rue Royale, Port Louis 1912; from Mauritius Ilustrated p.387
‘Pharmacie Nouvelle’ 5 rue Royale, Port Louis 1912; from Mauritius Ilustrated p.387

On 22 June 1914 at 37 years old, after completing his further studies in natural sciences, physics, and chemistry at the University of Montpellier, he joined the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montpellier as a student . He studied surgery up to 1915 and medicine from 1916-1917 where he became a Laureate Bachelor of Science in 1916.  

In 1916 Gaston moved to the University of Paris to pursue his studies to become a surgeon. In 1918-1920 he became a student of Dr Victor Pauchet (one of the most famous French surgeons during that time) and his assistant. Gaston graduated and became a MD (Doctor of medicine) in 1920.

In 1920, while working with Pauchet, Gaston met Dr Charles H Mayo of the Mayo’s Brothers Clinic in the USA. Mayo was in Paris to learn about the new surgical innovations of Pauchet. And while assisting Pauchet during an operation Mayo was much overwhelmed by Gaston’s anesthetic.  He invited Gaston to the Mayo Clinic in order to teach surgeons his modern methods of regional anesthesia. In September of the same year Gaston arrived at the Mayo Clinic and was appointed as a ‘special lecturer’ on all major aspects of regional anesthesia and started work on a textbook of regional anesthesia for the American medical audience.

Gaston performed very well and the staff wanted him to stay at the Clinic. After the arrival of Marie-Louise, his French paramour, he left the Clinic in Rochester in October 1921 for New York City where he set up his practice at New York and Bellevue Hospitals. He taught at the hospital and university until he died in 1934. He wrote a large number of papers on anesthesia and the first edition of his innovative and popular book was published in 1922.  The second edition followed in 1928 and the third edition was never published. Since 1977 the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA) started to offer the yearly “Gaston Labat Award” for an outstanding medical student.

 

Ref:

  1. Biography of Louis Gaston Labat, MD p. 249 by David L Brown MD and Alon P Winnie MD.
  2. Mauritius Illustrated pp. 386-387.
  3. Le Mauricien 16 October 1934.
  4. Dictionary of Mauritius Biography: pp. 1286-1288.
  5. Gaston Labat’s Regional Anesthesia: The Missing Years: by C A Vachon MD.; D R Bacon MD, MA and S H Rose MD..
  6. From Victor Pauchet to Gaston Labat: The Transformation of Regional Anesthesia from a Surgeon’s Practice to the Physician Anesthesiologist by: Annie V. Côté, MD, Claude A. Vachon, MD, Terese T. Horlocker, MD and Douglas R. Bacon, MD MA.
  7. Heulwen Hélène Pool and Daniella Johnstone: Birth and Death records Seychelles 1794-1905, www.henri.maurel.pagesperso-orange.fr