Intensive care medicine – from poliomyelitis to Covid-19

History of intensive care

Abstract

In France, intensive care was born just after the Second World War. We can schematically consider that intensive care, as we know it today, was created by Jean Hamburger and his fellows, on the one hand, and Pierre Mollaret and his fellows on the other hand. These teams were respectively at the Necker hospital and at the Claude Bernard hospital, emphasizing that in France, intensive care was born at the Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Paris. Jean Hamburger has created intensive care mainly through his pioneering work on water and electrolytes metabolism, and on the kidney, concretely demonstrating the concept of the internal environment developed by Claude Bernard. He paved the way for dialysis and kidney transplantation. Pierre Mollaret has created intensive care mainly by taking up the challenge of respiratory complications of infectious and neurological diseases. It paved the way for respiratory and hemodynamic support. Their fellows then spread throughout France. From generation to generation, this new discipline that is intensive care, has increased its international influence and its positioning at the heart of the hospital. Born with the poliomyelitis pandemic, intensive care is experiencing an important turning point largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The coming years will have to devote a profound change to the organization of intensive care to adapt to the evolution of society, to the upheavals induced by digital technology and precision medicine.