Background
Charcot was born on July 15, 1867, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, the son of the distinguished neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.
Charcot was born on July 15, 1867, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, the son of the distinguished neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.
A brilliant student at the Faculté de Médecine, Charcot was an interne at the Hôpitaux de Paris, received the M.D. degree at the Faculté de Médecine in 1895, was chief of its neurological clinic, and was associated with the Institut Pasteur.
Between 1887 and 1901 Charcot published works devoted to neurology, on such topics as various forms of epilepsy, tuberculosis of the paracentral region, motor agraphia, and Benedikt’s syndrome. In the textbook Manuel de médecine he wrote articles on aphasia and lead poisoning. Yet Charcot abandoned his medical career to devote himself to the sea. He admitted that his medical knowledge was subsequently very useful to him and that he was able to pursue his maritime explorations and researches thanks to the education and the training in the scientific method.
Accustomed to handling a boat since his childhood, Charcot trained himself in preparation for the explorations that he undertook beginning in 1903. He had already sailed on a small schooner in the latitudes of the Faeroe Islands in 1901; and on a sailing ship, he set out in 1902 for the Faeroes and went as far as the polar island of Jan Mayen. He brought back valuable information on the whale fisheries, on the hydrography of the region, and on the physical conditions of the water in the vicinity of the ice floes. Voyages of exploration and scientific expeditions followed these preparatory missions, and Charcot proved his ability as an organizer and leader. He had constructed, according to his directions and plans, the Français and the Pourquoi Pas?, the first polar vessels to be built in France. The Pourquoi Pas? was both the model for ships built for scientific polar exploration and a research ship for all latitudes. From 1911 the Pourquoi Pas?, with Charcot as its director, was considered the floating marine research laboratory of the École Pratique des Hautes Études and was often used by the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. The Pourquoi Pas? was also used as a school for candidates for the certificate of competence as captain of a merchant vessel.
The cruises, always under Charcot’s command, included physicists, oceanographers, biologists, and geologists, both French and foreign. Among them were the first French Antarctic expedition, aboard the Français (1903-1905); the second French Antarctic expedition, aboard the Pourquoi Pas? (1908-1910); and missions in the Atlantic, the Arctic polar regions, and the Gulf of Gascony (1912, 1913, 1914, 1920); the North Atlantic (1921, 1922); the western Mediterranean and the Gulf of Gabès (1923); the English Channel, the Irish Sea, and the western British archipelago (1924); the waters around Jan Mayen Island and Jameson Land in Greenland, the Scoresby Sound (1925, 1926); the North Sea and the Baltic (1927, 1930); and the waters around Greenland (1928, 1929, 1932). In 1933 he explored the coast of Blosseville Kyst, and in 1934 he led back to Angmassalik the Victor mission (which had to winter in Greenland).
During the expeditions, work was done in hydrography, meteorology, atmospheric electricity, gravitation and terrestrial magnetism, actinometry, the chemistry of the atmosphere, the tides, zoology, botany, geology and mineralogy, glaciology, and bacteriology. New lands were discovered; the problem of the South American Antarctic was resolved; and the collections and documents brought back were both numerous and original. Two new sciences were created: submarine geology, with the establishment of marine geological maps, and geological oceanography.
After World War I, Charcot was greatly concerned with the application of oceanography to commercial fishing. He contributed to the creation and development of the Office Scientifique et Technique des Pêches, and in 1923 he published the first French fishing map of the North Sea. In 1932 Charcot led a “Polar Year” expedition to Greenland that remained there for a year, the first French polar expedition to use winter quarters. He was also instrumental in French participation in the exploration of Antarctica.
In 1936 he returned to Greenland to find the Victor mission again to bring it back to France. It was his last voyage. On the morning of 16 September 1936 the Pourquoi Pas?, buffeted for twelve hours by a storm, foundered on the Borgarfjord reefs off Iceland. The sole survivor, the master helmsman, wrote an account of the shipwreck which appeared in several newspapers (1936). Funeral services were held for the twenty-two scientists and sailors lost at sea at St. Malo on 11 October 1936 and at Paris on the following day. Homage was paid to Charcot and his companions at the great amphitheater of the Sorbonne on 25 November 1936.
(French Edition)
1905(French Edition)
All those who sailed on the Pourquoi Pas? were impressed with Charcot’s energy, courage, refined and profound sensibility, total unselfishness, great kindness, youthful spirit, and simplicity.