Jean-André Rochoux (1787–1852) can be considered the author, in 1812, of the first clinical and neuropathological description of cerebral hemorrhage and ischemia, based on concepts that underlie current vascular neurology. His biography reveals how his thinking was shaped by materialist philosophy, which was also the basis of his rigorous scientific reasoning. Due to his intransigent defence of his philosophical ideas and his outspoken anticlericalism, he was often contradicted and had many opponents who were not inclined to perpetuate his memory after his death, despite the high quality of his medical research. Our biography traces the career of this iconoclastic thinker and physician ahead of his time.