Jean Martin Charcot, 1825-1893. An appreciation.

Jean Martin Charcot, the father of modem neurology, was born in Paris on November 29, 1825, within the sound of the bells of Notre Dame and in an epoch of great political and economic struggle. He lived through a period which covered the ending of the French revolution, the Napoleonic era, the restoration of the Bourbons and Napoleon III, and the occupation of Paris by the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian war. At the start of the 19th century, France in the space of five decades had become the hub of world medicine. Many of her own sons were responsible for this and among them one thinks of Dupuytren, Laennec, Majendie, Cruveilhier, Pasteur, Claude Bernard, Broca, Vulpian, and Duchenne. At the age of 19, Charcot enrolled as a medical student-a choice entirely his own. He appears to have been a rather thin and pallid young lad, with black hair tossed back over a prominent brow. He was reserved in manner, although a keen observer and an excellent caricaturist with a fine visual memory to help this talent. After an externeship of nearly 2 years, he became friendly with Vulpian and both passed into the Salpe'triere Hospital. The life of Charcot and the Salpe'triere are closely intertwined with the history of Paris, and the first two are certainly inseparable from one another, so much so that his nickname became "Caesar of the Salpetriere". The Salpetriere Hospital at this time was a great asylum holding a population of about 5,000 incurable patients of all ages, suffering from chronic diseases of all kinds, but especially diseases of the nervous system. Indeed, no richer field existed in the whole of Europe for the study of nervous diseases. In 1853 Charcot graduated, presenting for his M.D. thesis a treatise in which he differentiated the symptoms and lesions of gout from those of