BRETONNEAU, PIERRE (1778-1862), French physician, was born on April 3, 1778, at Tours, and died on Feb. 18, 1862. His fame rests on the first performance (1825) of the operation of tracheotomy for croup; on the clinical distinction of diphtheria, so-named by him in his Des inflammations speciales du tissu muqueux et en particulier de la diphtherite (1826) ; and on his work on typhoid, which, he foresaw, would be differentiated from typhus. In 1855 he stated the germ theory of disease.
See P. Triaire, Bretonneau et ses correspondants (1892).