[Surgeon who treated Napoleon’s hemorrhoids: Guillaume Dupuytren, French anatomist.] Autograph Signature (‘B Gull Dupuytren’), as ‘premier Chirurgien du Roi’, to deposition on behalf of his pupil William Edmund Image; attested by Barthélémy Guiton.

1p, 4o. On watermarked laid paper. In fair condition, with slight wear and chipping; folded twice. Two manuscript endorsements on reverse, which also carries minor traces of previous mounting. In fairness to Dupuytren, his finest achievement is not operating on Napoleon’s hemorrhoids, but the description and first successful operation on what is now known as Dupuytren's contracture. Image lived with Dupuytren while studying medicine in Paris. Signed in untidy medical hand: ‘Paris le 4 juil: 1829 | B Gull Dupuytren’. Printed tax stamp in top left-hand corner, with blind stamp in margin below, with Dupuytren’s stamp as professor to the left of his signature, and Guiton’s stamp as mayor at foot. The deposition describes Dupuytren as ‘premier Chirurgien du Roi et de l’Hotel Dieu, membre de l’Institut de l’Académie Royale de Médicine, de la Legion d’Honneur, et des ordres de St Michel et de St. Waldemir de Russie, Professeur à la faculté de Médicine &c. &c.’ He affirms that ‘M. William Edmund Image a suivi avec zèle et exactitude mes visites, mon cours de clinique chirurgicale et mes operations depuis le 1r. octobre jusqu’au 5 avril 1829’. Beneath Dupuytren’s signature is a neat five-line attestation, signed ‘Guiton’, by Barthélémy Guiton, as ‘Maire du quatrieme arrondissement’. Guiton was the ‘Fondateur de la Caisse d'Epargne et de Prévoyance’, and at the time of signing he was one of the Regents of the Banque de France.