This article investigates the influence of French medical philosophy on the management practices of the Paris Opera in the early nineteenth century, contextualizing the gendered history of the body in ballet and its historiography in relation to the emergent concept of public health and hygiene. I interpret Dr. Louis-Désiré Véron’s medical thesis – published in 1823, less than a decade before he was named to his post at the Opera – placing it in context of the Enlightenment philosophy of sensibility and Véron’s practical medical training. Finally, I offer a brief overview of how the Paris Opera’s medical policies evolved, and ask how the theories of hygiene, pathology and anatomy that Véron trained in may have impacted practices at the Paris Opera.