Talk:Henri Coutard

Henri Coutard has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: July 5, 2022. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from Henri Coutard appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 April 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that Henri Coutard, an early pioneer in radiation therapy, spent the last decade of his life conducting fanciful experiments that were rejected by his peers? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Henri Coutard.

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 21:36, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Henri Coutard

• ... that Henri Coutard (pictured), an early pioneer in radiation therapy, spent the last decade of his life conducting fanciful experiments that were rejected by his peers? Source: Dictionary of American Biography, supp. 4, p. 186 (accessible after free registration): "Coutard was a pioneer in the practical application of the time-dose relationship in radiotherapy [...] After moving to Colorado he published no papers, seemed to have lost faith in accepted methods of radiation therapy, and devoted himself almost entirely to research that his medical associates regarded as strange."
  • Reviewed: House of Brag
  • Comment: moved to mainspace on 20 March

Moved to mainspace by DanCherek (talk). Self-nominated at 14:56, 26 March 2022 (UTC).[reply]

• A well-done article that is new enough, long enough, and within the relevant policies for DYK. Hook is interesting and of appropriate length, and supported by the sources. Image appears to be free and is clear enough at main page size. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 18:21, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To T:DYK/P5 without image

This review is transcluded from Talk:Henri Coutard/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Amitchell125 (talk · contribs) 07:43, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to review the article.

• Unlink World War I (see MOS:OL, also in the career section).

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 20:33, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Consider amending Sarthe to ‘the French department of Sarthe’.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 20:33, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Introduce Marie Curie here and in the career section.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 20:33, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• an extended period of several weeks – ‘several weeks’ is more concise (here and in the text of the article).

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 20:33, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• He was also called Henry Courtard, and this should be mentioned.

  I put it in a footnote, but let me know if you had something else in mind! DanCherek (talk) 21:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Link esophageal cancer.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 21:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• He experienced an intracerebral hemorrhage in 1949 and died in Le Mans a few months later. The month of his hemorrhage is needed for this sentence to make proper sense.

  Added "December". DanCherek (talk) 12:27, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Link thesis.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 12:27, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• recognised by the Minister of War – if he was recognised by the minister in person, this person should be named (Auguste Mercier?).

  I'm not actually sure that it happened in person (it may very well be similar to the U.S. President's Education Awards Program where you just get a generic certificate "signed" by the president), and the source isn't particularly clear about that, so per the source, I've revised it to "During this time, he also received an award for excellence in his school's military and gymnastics programs." DanCherek (talk) 12:34, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• On 17 July 1902, he successfully defended his thesis before a committee that included the surgeon Paul Berger. I’m unclear why this is needed, that he obtained his doctorate in 1902 is imo all that needs to be included.

  Trimmed. DanCherek (talk) 12:34, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Link French Association for the Advancement of Science to the French Wikipedia (Association française pour l'avancement des sciences).

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 12:34, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Coutard was a medical officer – amend to something like ‘Coutard enrolled as a medical officer’.

  Done as suggested. DanCherek (talk) 12:34, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Improve the prose of He became ill with pulmonary tuberculosis and decided to settle in a town in the Jura Mountains to practice general medicine while recovering. by amending it to something like 'After contracting pulmonary tuberculosis he moved to the Jura Mountains to recover, and during that time practiced general medicine.’.

  Done as suggested. DanCherek (talk) 12:34, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• the potential medical applications of radioactivity – to help readers understand the context of this statement, a brief history of the recent discovery of radioactivity would be useful.

  Done, added some information about Becquerel and the Curies. DanCherek (talk) 15:32, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• studying radium – ‘studying the properties of the element radium’?

  Modified as suggested, though ended up moving "the element" earlier when uranium was introduced. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Link radiation therapist; radiobiologist (Radiobiology).

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Amend His research to ‘Coutard’s research’ for the sake of clarity. Ditto He also worked (‘Coutard also worked’).

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• in animals – is it possible to be more precise about which kinds were used here?

  I'm not sure about this one. del Regato mentions "lower animals", but that can mean different things in different contexts. He pointed to Coutard's 1912 presentation titled "Sur l'emanation du Radium et son utilisation en therapeutique. Importance du rayonnement". I dug through a 1912 proceedings paper with that same title (accessible here: [1]) but wasn't able to find any mentions of specific animals. If I had to guess it would probably be rabbits or mice/rats (I think Regaud was doing experiments in rabbits around the same time), but that's just my own speculation. DanCherek (talk) 16:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for looking, in animals it is then. AM

• In Baccarat, - ‘There’.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• and attained the rank of major by the end of the war. - it’s not clear to me why this is linked with his work with Curie.

  I separated the sentences.

• He married Anne-Marie Adèle Rougier in Paris on 25 March 1919. - does not fit in this section, which is about his career. I would include it in a section called Personal life.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Link tumour; tissue.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• in animals – ‘on animals’.

  Changed. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• In his early work - ‘In his early work during this period’?

  Changed as suggested. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• subsequently is redundant and can be removed.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Around 1930 needs clarification – does the date refer to the period the data was collected or published?

  Clarified that it was the publication date, per source. DanCherek (talk) 16:28, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• different modes of dose fractionation regimens – sounds like jargon, and so needs to be copy edited.

  Modified to "different therapy regimens, including short, intensive doses and interrupted regimens", hope that's clearer! DanCherek (talk) 16:28, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Many radiotherapists – is too vague, many is probably redundant here.

  I replaced it with "Radiotherapists from other countries". DanCherek (talk) 16:28, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• There is no need to duplicate the link for née.

  Removed. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• radiotherapy research in the United States – amend to something like ‘United States radiotherapy research’ (as presumably he was still living in France at this time).

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• What is a supervoltage unit? (a power supply, X-ray machine…?)

  Clarified that it's an X-ray generator with a very high peak kilovoltage. DanCherek (talk) 17:06, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Millikan - needs to be named in full and introduced; assuming that he is Robert Andrews Millikan, he needs a link.

  Already named and linked earlier in this paragraph, but added introduction. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Introduce Seeley G. Mudd.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Link high-voltage; Chicago; graduate; entrepreneur; philanthropist.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The last paragraph belongs in a different section.

  Moved to Personal life. DanCherek (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Coutard remarried to - ‘Coutard married’?

  Changed. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• In the last decade of his life – it looks as if a new paragraph should be started from this point.

  Done. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• He conducted strange experiments – strange sounds editorial, might this part of the sentence be better replaced by ‘He began to conduct unorthodox experiments’?

  Changed as suggested. DanCherek (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• His fanciful ideas – who called them fanciful?

  I think I was unintentionally extrapolating from Grigg's description of "fantastic assumptions" - having thought about it, I've just removed the word entirely as the sentence works just as well without it, I think. DanCherek (talk) 18:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The last paragraph needs to be copy edited, as it appears to say that Courtard made a report about his wife’s death.

  Moved the information about his wife's death to Personal life. DanCherek (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It would be useful to state who said the words in quotes.

  Added attribution for Grigg. DanCherek (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• the director – the name would be useful here.

  Added. DanCherek (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• his return trip to France – as he was living in the US, why was his return trip to France?

  Removed the word "return", and added that he was visiting his sister's family, per source. DanCherek (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The article lacks much about the extent of the works Coutard published, or a discussion of his legacy – his notable student(s), if any / reputation following his death / current reputation / if his ideas have now been superceded, etc. Grigg, for instance, could be used to help out here.

  Retitled the Death section to "Death and legacy"; added that he published about 35 papers during his lifetime in addition to the monograph. Added some more from Grigg and a new source on how his earlier contributions have influenced the field of radiation therapy. del Regato lists several radiotherapists who trained under him, but they don't really seem notable or have Wikipedia articles so I've opted not to list a bunch of random names in this section. DanCherek (talk) 18:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• External links should not be within the main body of the text, as they are here. The section should be placed below the references section.

  See below. DanCherek (talk) 18:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Why were these works selected and not others?

  I had tried to select his highly-cited publications, based on Google Scholar, but I agree that it's not very clear cut. I've boldly just scrapped the section, as upon further consideration it wasn't very clear to me how beneficial it was to readers of the article, but let me know if you disagree with that decision and would like to see it restored with clearer inclusion criteria. DanCherek (talk) 18:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I searched for a definitive list of his papers, without success. If you are aware of an online list, that could be included in the article (in an External links section). Otherwise, I think you are correct in not trying to list his most important papers. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:49, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• del Regato (1987) could be used more to expand the article, for instance in describing Courtard’s personal life.

  Added some expansion to the new Personal life section about his wives, where they lived, moved, etc. DanCherek (talk) 18:31, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8608037/ is available for Holsti.

  I'm not sure what this means – the PMID parameter was already linked for this citation. DanCherek (talk) 15:32, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your are correct, please ignore this comment. AM

I'm putting the article on hold for a week until 6 July to allow time for the issues raised to be addressed. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 14:58, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Amitchell125. First of all, thanks for the thorough review, these were all really helpful suggestions. Thanks also for your patience; it was helpful for me to spend much of yesterday and today working through most of these. I think I'm ready for you to take another look. Let me know if you have further suggestions or feedback! DanCherek (talk) 18:32, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look and get back to you, thanks for all your work. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:26, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think we are there, so passing now. Thanks for getting everything finished—the article could definitely go further towards achieving FA status if you wanted to put in the work. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 20:52, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much again! DanCherek (talk) 20:58, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]