Tag: Salpêtrière
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The great hospitals of Paris
Few cities have shaped Western civilization as profoundly as Paris, the “city of light”. For over 500 years, until the mid-twentieth century, Paris was the undisputed center of European culture, encompassing art, literature, and philosophy. Historians trace its early history to 451 CE, when Saint Genevieve saved it from the Huns, and to about 500…
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Alix Joffroy in Brouillet’s A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière
Lilian GleaveCork, Ireland While some students of Jean-Martin Charcot like Sigmund Freud and Joseph Babinski achieved enduring fame, the legacy of others is just as foundational. In André Brouillet’s 1887 painting A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière,1 a man stands by the window, his head supported by his hand, lit from behind. Some medical historians…
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Grand rounds
In the days when medical teaching took place mainly at the bedside, grand rounds were the accepted method by which rare or interesting cases were demonstrated to the entire hospital staff. It was a tradition that went back at least to the days of the great Jean Charcot, who exhibited his grandes hysteriques and other…