»’VALENTIN Louis »’ (1758-Nancy, 1829). Voir éléments bio et biblio http://www.haven.u-net.com/BIOBV-2.htm Chirurgien militaire (diplômé avant la Révolution) passa 7-8 ans à Haïti et Saint-Domingue et en Virginie, où il fit des études sur la fièvre jaune et pratiqua la variolisation. Il revint en France en 1798, l’année où Jenner publia son Inquiry. Il fut le premier à mentionner Jenner en 1799-1800 dans son Traité historique et pratique de l’inoculation, cosigné avec François Dezoteux. D’abord sceptique, il oeuvra ensuite à la diffusion du procédé en France. Il rencontra Jenner en Angleterre en 1803 d’où naîtra une amitié durable et Valentin fut son premier biographe (Notice biographique sur le Dr Jenner en 1805)). L’année qui suivit la mort de Jenner, en 1824, il publia une édition revue et augmentée de sa « Notice biographique sur le Dr. Jenner », suivie de notes relatives à sa découverte de la vaccine ; Nancy 1823 (FW J139L). Louis Valentin était également franc-maçon à Nancy .

Un courrier de Valentin à John Baron, le premier biographe (anglais) de Jenner (Life of Edward Jenner, en 2 volumes, 1838), daté du 25 avril 1824, indique ceci :

« I send to you the last report of the Committee of Vaccine for 1821 & 1822 which ought to have been deposited at Gabon’s in Paris. It is very thin as that of 1820. . . . « Your last favor 14th present is arrived very opportunely three days ago. I was anxiously waiting for it and had postponed the print of my Notice hist. on Jenner. Now, it is going on, and I hope it will be more correct than the first, thanks to your kindness and obliging care. But, as to the sum which you believe was not given by the King to Jenner, I have only said: On fit espérer que le Roi donnerait 500£ as I had already published in 1802 that the King had paid it, and I had given to Jenner in 1803 a copy of my Résultats de l’inoculation de la vaccine and that he made no objection about such remuneration, consigned in it. I leave the affaire [sic] in doubt. The phrase in the text was impossible to be changed. « My writing is increased of six or seven pages more than the first edition. I wish it might be worthy of your approbation and that of the public. I hope that in eight days I shall have the pleasure of sending to you through the post two copies of it . . . When you have read it please to write and let know your judgement to your most faithfull friend Louis Valentin. »
« P.S. I know that De Carro’s work, Vaccination in Grece, Persie &c. [i.e., Joannes de Carro’s Histoire de la vaccination en Turquie, en Grèce, et aux Indes orientales (1804)], which I possess, does not make any mention of that practice by the Bramines in India, but I have quoted his letters published in the Bibliot. britan. . . . « M. Dupau [i.e., J.-Amédée Dupau, author of Notice historique sur le Dr. Edward Jenner, inventeur de la vaccine (1824)] has committed a fault page 8th lines 7, 8, 9 of his Notice for not having repeated exactly what I have said of Washington applied to Jenner. He causes W. to speak so. Wash. was dead, 9 years since, when a French[man] said, in speaking.