The failed theses of successful neurologists

Abstract

While practising as a young doctor in the university hospitals of Paris, Jean Martin Charcot defended his dissertation entitled Of Exception in Medicine on April 17, 1857, at the aggregation competition examinations (ie, to obtain a tenure position of full professor). His scepticism of available therapeutics was clear: “daily observation demonstrates that the economic animal is very often itself enough to repair the disorders which happen to it and to recover in the regular exercise of its functions”. He did not succeed. He would successfully defend a new dissertation, this time on chronic pneumonia, in 1860, with the support of Pierre Rayer, who sat on the examination jury. Rayer had already facilitated Charcot's career by recommending him as family doctor to the banker Benoit Fould. 1 Walusinski O Jean-Martin Charcot membre de jurys de thèses à la Faculté de Médecine de Paris (1862–1893). Oscitatio, Brou, France2020 Google Scholar Whilst waiting to become a professor, Charcot had formed a wealthy and socialite clientele. On Nov 13, 1861, Charcot and Edmé Félix Alfred Vulpian were promoted to heads of department for the two general medical services at the Salpêtrière, Paris, which had been known as the Hospice for Old Women (Hospice de la Vieillesse-Femmes) since 1837.