For 22 years Jacques Lisfranc was the famous surgeon at the Hospital La Pitté in Paris. He was born at Saint-Paul-en-Jarez in 1787, a village sited between Saint-Etienne and Lyon. After his Internship in Lyon he became Dupuytren's student in Paris. In his thesis, he described Dupuytren's operation of the removal of the lower jawbone.

In 1815 he succeeded in new surgical operations on the shoulder and on the foot. In 1830 he was the first to perform the ablation of rectum's carcinoma and became the most famous gynaecological surgeon. He could not become a professor of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris because of his enmity with Dupuytren. Nevertheless he was only interested in surgery and the care for his patients. On his tomb, one can read his favourite maxim:​ "Surgery is bright when operating but it is still brighter when there is no blood and mutilation and yet leads to the patient's recovery".