✓ The vein of Labbé is a very important structure and every neurosurgeon is acquainted with its anatomy. Because of the recent increasing interest and experience in skull base surgery, the vein of Labbé has received a great deal of attention. Intraoperative damage to this vein should be avoided and several methods to prevent this have been described. Despite these developments, nothing is written in the neurosurgical literature about the man who described this vein for the first time: Charles Labbé. The authors therefore conducted an extensive search of the literature and uncovered several public records in France to learn more about Charles Labbé.