title: [Joseph Babinski: a complex personality].
abstract: Joseph Babinski (1857-1932), a Paris hospital neurologist known for the discovery of his eponymous sign, was a highly complex personality. He was known as a handsome but silent "blue-eyed giant". His parents left Poland for Paris after the insurrection of 1848. Joseph and his elder brother Henri (1855-1931) were born in Paris and were therefore French, but they remained devoted to Poland. Joseph suffered from excruciating self-doubt and was meticulous. He was a reasoner and a righter of wrongs. Henri, who trained as a civil engineer at the French National School of Mines, prospected mineral, gold and diamond deposits in various countries. On his return to France at the end of the century, he wrote, under the pseudonym Ali-Bab, a monumental cookbook called "Gastronomie pratique", which was widely acclaimed Joseph and Henri, both unmarried, lived together and formed an inseparable couple. Joseph Babinski had no religious, political or ideological commitments. Some areas of his private life still remain rather shadowy.
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Poirier
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003296:Cooking / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009462:Neurology / Q000266:history*; D010297:Paris; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D012801:Sibling Relations