Claire Mugnier-Popp-Vogt (1898–1978). Une neuropsychiatre infantile injustement oubliée

Abstract

Oskar Vogt (1870–1959) and his wife Cécile Mugnier (1875–1962) are two rightly well-known neuroanatomists, particularly for their work on myelocytoarchitectonics of the cerebral cortex and for the description of the status marmoratus of the striatum responsible for the double athetosis. The numerous biographical articles, obituaries and Igor Klatzo's hagiogaphic monograph, which retrace the life and works of Cécile and Oskar Vogt, emphazise the professional success and quality of the scientific work of both of their two daughters, Marthe (1903–2003), Fellow of the Royal Society, Head of the Department of Pharmacology of the Institute of Animal Physiology and Professor of Pharmacology at Cambridge (UK) and Marguerite (1913–2007), virologist at the Salk Institute (La Jolla, California, USA) who devoted significant work to the relationship between viruses and cancer. But, a year before her marriage to Oskar, Cécile had had a daughter, Claire, born on 1898, June 1st, of an unnamed father. Her birth certificate mentioned that it was the medical doctor Hippolyte Morestin (1869–1919), surgeon of the hospitals of Paris, future pioneer of the repairing maxillofacial surgery (the “broken jaws », war veterans with severe facial injuries, of the Great War) who declared the birth and specified that it was he who “performed the delivery” at the mother's home. What was the relationship between Cécile Mugnier and Hippolyte Morestin? – Mystery! Unlike her two sisters, Claire is the forgotten one. When she is mentioned, it is only about her status as an illegitimate daughter of Cécile, but there are never any biographical data concerning her, except that at the age of 4, she had been recognized by Cécile and Oskar and was therefore called Claire Vogt or Mugnier-Vogt. We have no information about Claire's childhood and we only find her again when she was studying at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. She became an interne at the Paris hospitals, then a chef de clinique and a medical doctor in 1929 (with a thesis on brain tumors in children). Alongside Professor Georges Heuyer (1884–1977), founder of child psychiatry in France, Claire participates in the birth in France of this specialty and must be considered as an early child neuropsychiatrist. In the years 1943–1944, Claire practised in Paris 17th, 78, avenue de Villiers, as a specialist doctor of neuropsychiatry and diseases of children. She became a doctor-assistant of the hospitals of Paris, attached to the Salpêtrière in the department of Dr. Marcel Faure-Beaulieu (1878–1959). She replaced Dr. May at Tenon Hospital during the hostilities in 1940, and in the late 1950s she was assistant in the department of Professor Raymond Garcin (1897–1971). Claire published numerous articles about pediatric neurology, many of which have appeared in the Revue neurologique. In 1937, Claire married Aurel Popp (1882–1957), secretary archivist of the Romanian Legation in Paris, and took the name of Popp-Vogt. She died at the Foch Hospital in Suresnes on June 18, 1978, at the age of 80. All in all, though overshadowed – for unknown reasons – by literature and by her parents, Claire Mugnier-Popp-Vogt has been a pioneer in child neuropsychiatry.