Nicolas Noël

Nicolas Nöel (27 May 1746 – 11 May 1832) was a French surgeon.

He studied medicine in Paris until 1776, when he joined George Washington in the United States’ fight for independence, performing surgery for the Continental Army.[1] Working as surgeon of the ship on the Boston in 1778, Nöel found himself sailing alongside John Adams and John Quincy Adams.[2] While aboard, he taught the two Bostonians, bound for a diplomatic mission at Versailles, some much-needed French skills.[3] Nöel continued to serve the United States until 1784. Thereafter, he returned to his homeland and began working as chief surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu in Reims (1785).

In 1786, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.[4][5] The same year, he married Jeanne Françoise Angélique Caqué. He supported the French Revolution and in 1792 joined the Army of the North, occupied a seat on the Army’s Health Council (1793), and then as Inspector General he visited hospitals in Belgium, England, and Vendée in Western France. In 1795, he founded and personally funded a free medical school and a botanical garden which lasted until 1808. Finally, at the age of sixty, he received a medical doctorate in Paris (1805), and earned the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (1831). He died a year later in Reims.[6]