COBLENCE, ADOLPHE:

French army surgeon; born at Nancy May 11, 1812; died in Paris Sept 18, 1872. He entered the service of the army as an assistant surgeon in the military hospital at Metz in 1832; became surgeon in 1834; and subsequently was made head of the clinic at the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris, by Baron Larrey. While at the Invalides he received the degree of M.D. from the faculty of Paris, and was appointed surgeon, with the rank of adjutant, to the Fifty-fifth Regiment of the line and to the engineer corps stationed at Metz. In 1846 he was promoted to surgeon-major of the Twelfth Infantry, which took part in the last expedition against 'Abd-al-Ḳadir.

In 1849, in recognition of his self-sacrificing devotion to his duties during the outbreak of the cholera in Oran, he was presented by the civil authorities with a gold medal, and was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Coblence was attached in 1856 to the military hospital at Bayonne, but gave up his position and went to the Crimea, afterward devoting himself to the typhoid-stricken soldiers quarantined in the island of Porquerolles. In 1859 he was made an officer of the Legion of Honor for hissplendid services with the Renault division during the Italian campaign, particularly at Magenta and Solferino, and subsequently was appointed physician-in-chief of military hospitals, with quarters at Algiers. His excessive exertions and an unfavorable climate brought on blindness in 1863, whereupon he returned to Paris, and was retired.

Bibliography:
  • Arch. Isr. 1872, pp. 606, 627, 628.
S. A. R.
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