Today is the birthday of the inventor of this instrument. Can you name him?

Here are some clues:

“His childhood was tragic. Hardly able to stand, Antoine-Joseph fell from a height of three floors, seriously bumping his head against a stone: he was believed dead. At the age of three, he swallowed a bowl of vitriolized water, and then a pin. Later, he was seriously burned in a gunpowder explosion; he fell onto a cast iron frying pan and burned himself on one side. Three times he escaped poisoning and asphyxiation in his bedroom, where varnished items were lying about during the night. Another time, he was hit on the head by a cobblestone; he fell into a river and was saved by the skin of his teeth..

"He's a child condemned to misfortune; he won't live," his mother said. In the district, they called him the ghost".

These initial serious incidents were, alas, but the prelude to an eventful existence such as only a few have known. In 1858, he was miraculously saved from a cancer of the lip by a black doctor who knew the properties of certain Indian plants. What would the future have been but for this intervention?” - Albert Rémy

He was the inventor of many instrument improvements as well as the inventor of what was to become a very popular instrument world-wide.