[J.M. Charcot's gerontology].
Charcot always took a deep interest in diseases of old age and he found a large field of research in the Salpêtrière where there were some 5 000 old people. In 1867 he published his "Lecons sur les maladies des vieillards et les maladies chroniques" with chapters especially devoted to gout and rheumatism. The book, with additions, was translated into English in 1881. Charcot was interested in the forms of fever and he compared them in the child, the adult and the aged. He recommended that in old people rectal temperature be measured since it may be high while skin and axillary temperature are normal. Charcot distinguished: 1) diseases specific to old age, e.g. senile marasmus, cerebral atrophy, senile tremor. 2) diseases met at any age but more severe in the aged, e.g. respiratory diseases; 3) diseases to which old people oppose less resistance, e.g. tuberculosis, typhoid fever. Among many studies of Charcot on diseases of old age, the present paper recalls those devoted to pneumonia, asthma, tuberculosis, arterial, i.e. aneurysmal, embolic, atheromatous diseases, diseases of the liver, digestive and urinary tracts. In all those papers as well as in his bedside teaching. Charcot insisted that pathology was the basis of clinical practice: "tant vaut le pathologiste, tant vaut le clinicien".
D000368:Aged; D002908:Chronic Disease; D004066:Digestive System Diseases / Q000266:history; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006761:Hospitals / Q000266:history; D006801:Humans; D010297:Paris; D010336:Pathology / Q000266:history; D012140:Respiratory Tract Diseases / Q000266:history; D014652:Vascular Diseases / Q000266:history
La gérontologie de J.M. Charcot.