[Jean-Martin Charcot, his time and Kinnosuke Miura].
Jean-Martin Charcot died unexpectedly on August 16, 1893, just 100 years ago. As a young physician, he worked in pathology and medicine under Rayer for nine years, and wrote on diseases of the heart, lungs and kidneys, on rheumatism and gout. In 1862, he was appointed as medical superintendent to the Hospice de la Salpêtrière. This institution contained a population of over 5000 persons, affected with every kind of chronic maladies, particularly with diseases of the nervous system. As a clinician, he could begin to observe, examine and describe with his excellent master Duchenne de Boulogne. And as an anatomo-pathologist in his association with his colleague Vulpian, he devoted himself to compare the pathological findings with clinical records, to bring order into this chaos. During the 8-year period from 1862 to 1870, Charcot made many discoveries that made firm basis for neurology as one new specialty in medicine. The first beautiful fruit of their effort was the clinico-pathological identification of "Disseminated Sclerosis", clearly differentiated from "Paralysis agitans" of which first reported by Parkinson 1817. He succeeded Vulpian to the chair of pathological anatomy in 1872. The sequential decrement of the shift may be a reason why the disease is self-limited.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Aki
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Social Welfare Institution, HARUMI Nursing Home for Aged, Tokyo.
D005602:France; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D007564:Japan; D009462:Neurology / Q000266:history*