An improbable genius?

Abstract

… il croyait avoir decouvert la panacee universelle, la liqueur de vie destinee a combattre la debilite humaine, seule cause reelle de tous les maux, une veritable et scientifique fontaine de Jouvence … [… he believed to have discovered the universal panacea, the vital liquor destined to combat human mental deficiency, the only real cause of all evil, a true and scientific fountain of youth … Zola, 1893, p. 54] This citation may have been applicable to the subject of the present book, Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard (1817–94). But if a physician’s fame (or notoriety) were to be determined by how often he or she is depicted in novels, another neuroscientist (to use a modern term)—his contemporary, Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893)—would certainly be champion. Charcot not only figured in many contemporary novels (numerous French and, furthermore, Tolstoj, Stoker, Bjornson, Kinck, Frich, Munthe, Peres Galdos, amongst others), but may even be found in recent novels (Enquist, Thuillier, Hustvedt, Eco). Obviously, scientific and medical events are often reflected in novels. Of interest during the period of consideration is the reflection of positivistic philosophy and its influence on medicine, completing the introduction of the scientific method by around the middle of the 19th century. It inspired the French author Emile Zola (1840–1902), considered the founding father of the naturalistic literary movement that was founded in Paris (1877) and influenced many novelists of the period. In the last volume of his Rougon-Macquart series, 20 novels describing various aspects of French society during the Second Empire (1852–70), Zola stages a physician that I have always assumed to be Brown-Sequard. Throughout the series two families are followed through five generations. Zola describes how the actions of the characters are determined by the environment and the hereditary taint that runs through the family and may present in several ways, including …