Charcot, Jean-Martin

Charcot, Jean-Martin

(b. Paris, France, 29 November 1825; d. Lake Settons, Nièvre, France, 16 August 1893),

medicine neurology.

Charcot was the son of a wheelwright. After studying at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, he interned in the Hôpitaux in 1848. He was awarded the M.D. in 1853 upon presentation of an outstanding doctoral thesis on gout and chronic rheumatism. In 1806 he was agrégé; in 1862 he became resident doctor at the Salpêtrière, where he created a major neurological department. Charcot was appointed professor of anatomical pathology at the Paris Faculty of Medicine in 1872, and in 1882 he accepted the chair for the study of nervous disorders at the Salpêtrière clinic, with Joseph Babinski as his director.

During the next twenty years Charcot published a series of memoirs that attracted wide attention among neurologists. At this time he also practised extensively the clinical anatomical method that correlated the symptoms observed in the sick patient and the lesions discovered at the time of autopsy. Through these he proved that the cells of the dorsal horn of the spinal cord possess certain trophic properties and then analyzed the lesions found in these cells as a result of infantile paralysis. In collaboration with C. J. Bouchard he studied the secondary degeneration of the spinal cord.

Charcot then described the neurogenic arthropathics popularly known as Charcot’s disease; in later studies he delineated the difference between patchy sclerosis and the effects of Parkinson’s disease. He noted that the pseudohypertrophic paralysis of Duchenne is quite different from myelopathic muscular atrophy; he recorded the history of lateral amyotrophic sclerosis (also known as Charcot’s disease); and he discovered a Progréssive neuropathic muscular atrophy, later named Charcot Marie (after Pierre Marie amyotrophy).

Charcot vigorously supported and defended the theory of cerebral localizations in man; several of his outstanding courses dealt with this theory and its application to Jacksonian epilepsy, aphasia, and Beard’s neurasthenia. In 1872 he initiated work on hysteria and hysterical hemianesthesia, and on the link between traumatism and local hysteria, At the time of his sudden death he was engaged in work on hysteria, convulsive attacks in hysterical patients, and hypnotic therapy. Indeed, Charcot must be considered one of the first to demonstrate the clear and fruitful relationship between psychology and physiology (his work on hysteria stimulated Freud’s investigations) as well as, with Duchenne, one of the fathers of modern neurology.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Charcot’s most influential works include Leçons sur les maladies du système nerveux, 5 vols. (Paris, 1872–1893) and Leçons du mardui à la Salpêtrière, 2 vols. (Paris 1889–1890). His works are collected on Oeuures complètes 9 vols (Paris, 1886–1890).

A detailed biography, with a complete bibliography, is G. Guillain, J. M. Charcot (1825–1893) La vie son oeuvre (Paris, 1955). See also H. Meige, “Charcot artiste. Ceremonia du centenaire de la naissance de J. Charcot à la Sorbonne,” Notice de l’Académie des sciences, no. 14 (Paris, 1925).

AndrÉe TÉtry