Background
Jean-Martin Charcot was born on November 29, 1825, in Paris, France; son of a carriage maker.
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Jean-Martin Charcot was born on November 29, 1825, in Paris, France; son of a carriage maker.
He took his medical degree at the University of Paris in 1853. He studied under, and greatly revered, Duchenne de Boulogne.
He was appointed professor of pathological anatomy at University of Paris in 1860. In 1862 he was appointed senior physician at the Salpêtrière, a hospital for the treatment of the mentally ill. It became a center for psychiatric training and psychiatric care, for Charcot had a flair for theatrics in addition to his reputation for sound science, and his lectures and demonstrations attracted students from all over Europe.
Charcot's contributions fall largely into three categories. First, he studied the etiology and cure of hysterical disorders (psychoneuroses). These disorders involve what appear to be physiological disturbances such as convulsions, paralyses, blindness, deafness, anesthesias, and amnesias. However, there is no evidence of physiological abnormalities in psychoneuroses since the root of the problem is psychological. In Charcot's time hysteria was thought to be a disorder found only in women (the Greek word hystera means uterus), but his demonstrations were eventually influential in correcting this idea. Charcot, however, continued to think of hysteria as a female disorder.
Charcot's second area of contribution was the correlation of various behavioral symptoms with physiological abnormalities of the nervous system. One of the major problems for early psychiatry was that of determining whether certain behavioral abnormalities had their origins in psychological or in physiological disturbances and, if physiological, where in the central nervous system the abnormality might be located. Charcot became noted for his ability to diagnose and locate the physiological disturbances of nervous system functioning.
Finally, Charcot made popular the use of hypnotism as a part of diagnosis and therapy. Hypnotism, known at the time as "mesmerism" (named for Franz Anton Mesmer), was regarded by the medical profession as charlatanism. Charcot found hypnotism useful in distinguishing true psychoneurotics from fakers and, like Mesmer, found that hysterical symptoms could be relieved through its use. In the hypnotic state the patient falls into an apparent sleep. While in this condition, the patient can sometimes recall events in his life which are not recalled in the waking state, and he is susceptible to the suggestions of the therapist.
In 1882 Charcot presented a summary of his findings to the French Academy of Sciences, where they were favorably received. Scientific psychiatry was thus well on its way to being accepted by the medical profession. Charcot died on Aug. 16, 1893.
He specialized in the study of hysteria, using hypnosis as a basis for treatment. He is also known as "the founder of modern neurology", and his name has been associated with at least 15 medical eponyms, including Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease and Charcot disease (better known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, motor neurone disease, or Lou Gehrig disease). He established a neurology clinic at Salpêtrière, which was the first of its kind in Europe.
The Charcot-Janet school, which formed from the work of Charcot and his student Janet, contributed greatly to knowledge of multiple personality disorders. Charcot Island in Antarctica was named the Island in honor of his father. The Charcot Award is given every two years by the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation for a lifetime of outstanding research into the understanding or treatment of multiple sclerosis.
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1882He was accused of being an atheist.
Charcot argued vehemently against the widespread medical and popular prejudice that hysteria was rarely found in men, presenting several cases of traumatic male hysteria. He taught that due to this prejudice these "cases often went unrecognised, even by distinguished doctors" and could occur in such models of masculinity as railway engineers or soldiers.
Charcot thought of art as a crucial tool of the clinicoanatomic method.
Quotations:
"In the last analysis, we see only what we are ready to see, what we have been taught to see. We eliminate and ignore everything that is not a part of our prejudices. "
"To learn how to treat a disease, one must learn how to recognize it. The diagnosis is the best trump in the scheme of treatment. "
"Symptoms, then, are in reality nothing but a cry from suffering organs. "
He married a rich widow, Madame Durvis, in 1862 and had two children, Jeanne and Jean-Baptiste, who later became a doctor and a famous polar explorer
