[Nicolas René Dufriche; baron]. French military surgeon, born in Alençon on the 23rd of May 1762; died on the 3rd of February 1837. He was chief of the medical corps of the army of Italy in 1795–96, and of the Grand Army of the Empire until the battle of Waterloo. He was dismissed from his position in the army at the Restoration, and shortly afterward was obliged to give up a professorship in the College of France. He was, however, restored, in part, by his election in 1832 to the position of physician of the Invalides. He wrote a number of medical treatises, one of which, The Medical History of the Army of the East (1802), is valued to-day.
