Louis La Caze

Dr. Louis La Caze (6 May 1798 — 28 September 1869) was a successful French physician and collector of paintings whose bequest of 583 paintings to the Musée du Louvre was one of the largest the museum has ever received. Among the paintings, the most famous are likely to be Pierrot ("Gilles") by Antoine Watteau, or Rembrandt's Bathsheba at Her Bath.

Born to a family of social standing, he retreated to simple rooms in the Latin Quarter of Paris. A dedicated student devoted to the theory of medicine, he demonstrated during the cholera epidemic of 1831-32 that cholera was not directly transmissible, by sharing the quarters of a dying patient. He was afterwards presented with a medal of honor. As he found himself in no want of fortune, he drew his practice from among the poor, pro bono, and lived a life of extreme simplicity and privacy. In 1852 he retired altogether from hospital work, discouraged at the lack of progress being made against tuberculosis and typhoid fever among the working class. In addition to his bequest to the Louvre, he left funds for the study of these two endemic diseases.