1825-1893

French Physician, Neurologist and Teacher

Jean-Martin Charcot was a pioneer of modern neurology and psychotherapy. Psychologists remember him for his investigations of hypnosis and hysteria, and his influence on Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Among his contemporaries Charcot was highly respected as a teacher at La Salpêtrière and the creator of a unique neurological clinic. A prolific author and indefatigable researcher, he published many important clinical descriptions of nervous disorders and histological observations of lesions associated with various disorders.

Charcot was born in Paris, where he studied medicine and established an international reputation as a clinician, neurologist, and teacher. Although Charcot failed the competitive examinations in 1847, he became an Interne at the Salpêtrière, a major Parisian hospital and mental asylum, the next year. In 1853 he was awarded his M.D. for a thesis based on studies that differentiated rheumatoid arthritis from...