Franz Anton Leopold Lafontaine (14 January 1756 – 12 December 1812) was a German-born Polish military surgeon. He was known as the editor of the first Polish medical journal and for his work on catarrh.

Early life

Leopold was born in Biberach as the son of Benno Leopold Ignatius Lafontaine (1731–1777), a merchant, and his wife Maria Katharina Franziska Leonhardt (b. 1725). It is possible that the Lafontaine family was descended from a Huguenot refugee. He was physician to the last king of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski.

Marriage and descendants

He married Maria Theresia Kornély (1765–1827), daughter of Joseph Kornély (né Nathan Adelkind), a wealthy Polish-Hungarian Court Jew converted to Catholicism. Kornély was a Jewish merchant, originally from Poland, established in Unvar, Hungary. Baptized, he takes the name of Joseph Kornély, in memory of an illustrious ancestor, Cornelius Adelkind, a 16th century Venetian printer and publisher. They had two daughters:

Other sources