French Francs Research Articles

The Touchstone of Memory: My Parents, Oberlin College, and the Second World War

The Touchstone of Memory: My Parents, Oberlin College, and the Second World War Dominique H. Vasseur (bio) These memories, which are my life—for we possess nothing certainly except the past—were always with me. —Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited I In most respects my parents were fairly typical people, who led lives typical for their time. Yet, when I tell others how they met and eventually married, the response is always “you need to write about this—it’s fascinating,” and so this is the story of my parents. I never knew my father, Jacques Henri Vasseur. I was simply too young, only a little over two years old, when he died at age thirty-three from cancer. One of my earliest memories of him is a photograph in my French grandmother’s apartment in Paris. In it he is dressed as a French sailor looking young, innocent almost, but intelligent, thoughtful, and yet curiously detached or distant (Fig. 1). My grandmother idolized him. He was her one and only child, her blue-eyed, fair-haired golden boy, and it was clear to me from an early age on that in her eyes no finer man had ever lived. Years after my mother, Mary Vasseur, returned from France to the U.S. following my father’s death, she did not, as I remember, often speak of him, except to say “he loved you and he would be proud of you today.” His tragic and early death had to be painful for her to recall. Or perhaps I did not ask her enough about him; I suppose it was painful for me as well. I do remember being embarrassed that I did not have a father [End Page 237] like all the other neighborhood children in Springfield, Ohio, where we lived. That circumstance, among other things including my French name, contributed to my feeling different and apart from others. Yet I always wanted to know more about my father, as that knowledge seemed a key to understanding who I was or might become. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Jacques Vasseur in French naval uniform, ca. 1937. Despite his absence in our day-to-day lives, my father was nevertheless present in small, unspoken ways. My mother kept a photograph in her bedroom of him wearing a plaid Pendleton [End Page 238] wool shirt that she took to him when she went to visit in 1948. There were also mementoes from the Second World War, which were kept in a metal Craven A cigarette box. My father preferred Craven A cigarettes—incidentally Charles de Gaulle’s favorite brand—while he was in England with the Free French Forces. Every now and then, I would open the box and inspect the contents, which included military uniform patches, an enameled Cross of Lorraine pin, and a ring made from worthless aluminum French francs. As I had no real understanding of the war these totemic relics seemed highly mysterious. Whenever though we went to visit my French grandmother in Paris, my father became more real through her vivid memories. Her 18th arrondissement apartment had not changed since my father lived there with her in the 1930s and after the war. I remember being very upset, but not showing it, when my grandmother had her apartment redecorated in the 1980s, as if the new wallpaper itself was a barrier or insult to my father’s memory. My mother, Mary Burmeister (Fig. 2), was born on April 29, 1921, in Springfield, Ohio, a small once-prosperous city between Columbus and Dayton known for International Harvester Corporation and Crowell Collier Publishing Company. Her father, Frederick William Burmeister, was a senior salesman for Robbins & Myers Fan Company and her mother, née Ruth Heileman, had been a nurse in the early years of the twentieth century, graduating in the first nursing school class in Springfield.1 The Burmeisters had come to the U.S. in the 1890s from the region of Alsace-Lorraine, then a part of the Second German Empire, settling first in Cincinnati but later moving to Springfield, which had a large German-American community. The Heilemans, it seems, came to the...

Fundusz Pomocy Niezależnej Literaturze i Nauce Polskiej – reakcja polskiej emigracji na stan wojenny

Fund for the Continuity of Polish Independent Litterature and Humanities – the Reaction of Polish Emigration to the Martial Law This article presents the activity of the Fund for the Continuity of Polish Independent Litterature and Humanities, one of the reactions of the Polish intellectual emigration to the state of war triggered in Poland on December 13, 1981. Created in the Parisian circles of the magazine Kultura, the Fund brings together great personalities, such as: Józef Czapski, Jerzy Giedroyc, Konstanty Jeleński, Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski, Czesław Miłosz. The nature of these activities and the renown of its animators places it in a more global and older strategy, initiated during the Cold War and aimed at the “de-Sovietization” of the minds in Western intellectual circles. This work is carried out on the basis of unpublished archives, retracing the two main axes of the activity of the Fund: editorial action and allocation of grants for representatives of the independent Polish culture. The Fund invested about five million French francs between 1982 and 1990 to co-finance the edition of 56 books and to award numerous grants for Polish creators for stays in the West. Its activity, spread over the decades 80 and 90, can be seen as a final touch in a broader strategy that contributed to the collapse of European communism.

Legacies of French Slave-Ownership, or the Long Decolonization of Saint-Domingue

After insurgent slaves in Saint-Domingue proclaimed the colony’s independence from France in 1804, France refused to recognize the new state of Haiti. When it finally did so in 1825, it was with gunboats outside Haitian harbors, and in exchange for favourable terms of trade and an indemnity of 150 million French francs to be paid to the former planters for the loss of their landed property. Although King Charles X and his advisors intended the indemnity to bring liquidity into the hands of a class deemed essential to restoration politics, in the event it did not achieve this goal. While the indemnity paid to British former slave-owners after the abolition of 1833 served in part as venture-capital for British industrial expansion, the Haitian indemnity and other payments to former planters cultivated a different legacy of slave-ownership: a preoccupation with lost grandeur with a politics of resentment. This legacy was fed in no small part by the protracted nature of the payments, which encouraged planters’ descendants to continue the financial claims of their forebears, investing them with emotional significance. The article explores the more than a century-long process of ‘decolonizing’ Saint-Domingue and its significance for the culture of French imperialism.

Ten-dinar banknote from 1887 and 1893

The 10-dinar banknote payable in silver, second issue, appeared less than two years after the temporary banknote of the same denomination was put into circulation in 1885. According to the data of the National Bank, 10,875,000 pieces of this banknote were issued in the nominal value of 108,750,000 dinars. It definitely stopped being the legal tender on 3 September 1921. This banknote is interesting as the carrier of two currencies, dinars on the one side, and francs, on the other. The 10-dinar banknote of the Privileged National Bank of the Kingdom of Serbia was prepared in 1893, but it was not until 13 September 1908 that it was put in circulation. Just like the previous one, this banknote was prepared in Banque de France in Paris by the same authors. With its 23,941,000 pieces, this banknote remained in circulation for full 25 years. The decision of the National Bank of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes about its retraction was published on 19 July 1928, but it was from 31 March 1934 that it definitely stopped being used. Interestingly enough, this banknote was used by the Serbian refugees in the First World War, who exchanged them in Paris and Zurich for French and Swiss francs at a stable rate.

The Price Knowledge Paradox: Why Consumers Have Lower Confidence in, but Better Recall of Unfamiliar Prices

This paper introduces the price knowledge paradox: an effect where consumers have lower confidence in their price memory for unfamiliar (versus familiar) prices, but, in fact, have better recall of unfamiliar (versus familiar) prices. We propose that this effect is due to unfamiliar price formats being processed more intentionally, leading to their being better encoded, and accordingly, more accurately retrieved from memory. Familiar price formats, on the other hand, are processed less intentionally, leading to consumers being over confident in their memory for familiar prices. Results from a field experiment with French shoppers (n = 683) conducted 6 months prior to the introduction of the Euro, demonstrates that consumers exposed to prices in Euros are almost twice as likely to recall the exact price of the product as compared to those exposed to prices in French Francs, although only 69 % of those seeing Euro prices (versus 85 % in FFs) said they could recall the price—the price knowledge paradox. Importantly, these effects carry through to intentions to purchase. The theoretical contributions of the manner in which consumers’ process familiar versus unfamiliar price information has implications for international pricing managers and public authorities facing monetary changes across and within countries.

L’argent des aliénés : pécule et monnaie de nécessité à l’hôpital psychiatrique autonome de Cadillac

The in-house rules at lunatic asylum in France allowed them to issue necessity money (tokens and gift vouchers) as payment for work performed in the hospital therapeutic workshops. The Psychiatric Hospital in Cadillac, France, was thus able to issue its own private money (aluminium coins and notes marked in French francs) for the benefit of inmates working in the hospital from 1949 to 1957, i.e. a period of eight years. This internal and very specific form of retribution for inmates’work, which allowed them to purchase goods at the hospital canteen, seems to have been extremely rare in the history of French psychiatry.

EKONOMICZNE I PRAWNE ASPEKTY WPROWADZENIA WSPÓLNEJ WALUTY EUROPEJSKIEJ POZA STREFĄ EURO ORAZ USZTYWNIANIA KURSÓW WALUT WZGLĘDEM EURO

On January 1, 1999, the euro came into existence as a European common currency (currency of Economic and Monetary Union). Additionally, euro has become a legal tender in states and countries outside euro zone. In Europe, San Marino, the Vatican, Monaco and Andorra have adopted euro. With the introduction of the euro, it was necessary to redefine monetary relations with these countries which had no national currency but which used the former national currencies of Member States of the euro zone. Euro has become a legal tender also in French overseas department and territories which formerly used French francs: Mayotte, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Martinique, French Guiana, Reunion, and Guadeloupe on the basis of a decision of the Council or as integral part of France. Also parts of Balkans, where the Deutschmark has been used as the official currency – Kosovo and Montenegro, on January 1, 2002 also introduced euro, however based on internal decisions, not on agreement with the EU. They can use euro, but they are not allowed to issue banknotes and coins. Consequently, creation of the euro has launched process of euroization – adopting euro as own legal tender outside euro zone. Moreover, a number of states and countries, which currency was pegged at a fixed rate to the French franc, Portuguese escudo or Deutschemark, decided to introduce fixed peg arrangements against euro.

Fast and Automatic Activation of an Abstract Representation of Money in the Human Ventral Visual Pathway

Money, when used as an incentive, activates the same neural circuits as rewards associated with physiological needs. However, unlike physiological rewards, monetary stimuli are cultural artifacts: how are monetary stimuli identified in the first place? How and when does the brain identify a valid coin, i.e. a disc of metal that is, by social agreement, endowed with monetary properties? We took advantage of the changes in the Euro area in 2002 to compare neural responses to valid coins (Euros, Australian Dollars) with neural responses to invalid coins that have lost all monetary properties (French Francs, Finnish Marks). We show in magneto-encephalographic recordings, that the ventral visual pathway automatically distinguishes between valid and invalid coins, within only ∼150 ms. This automatic categorization operates as well on coins subjects were familiar with as on unfamiliar coins. No difference between neural responses to scrambled controls could be detected. These results could suggest the existence of a generic, all-purpose neural representation of money that is independent of experience. This finding is reminiscent of a central assumption in economics, money fungibility, or the fact that a unit of money is substitutable to another. From a neural point of view, our findings may indicate that the ventral visual pathway, a system previously thought to analyze visual features such as shape or color and to be influenced by daily experience, could also able to use conceptual attributes such as monetary validity to categorize familiar as well as unfamiliar visual objects. The symbolic abilities of the posterior fusiform region suggested here could constitute an efficient neural substrate to deal with culturally defined symbols, independently of experience, which probably fostered money's cultural emergence and success.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Trastuzumab (Herceptin) in HER2-Overexpressed Metastatic Breast Cancer

In women with Human Epidermal growth Receptor 2 (HER2)-positive metastatic breast cancer (MBC), Trastuzumab has become the standard of care but previous studies have raised doubts about its economic acceptability. We carried out the first cost-effectiveness study for Trastuzumab in MBC patients, in France, that is based on observed resource use and outcomes in clinical practice. We retrospectively analyzed 47 HER2-positive MBC patients in a before-and-after design study. Nineteen patients did not receive Trastuzumab ("before" Trastuzumab introduction in clinical practice) and 28 patients received Trastuzumab (the "after" population). Direct medical costs were estimated on the basis of the physical quantities reported in the patient medical records, for the period from first metastatic progression until death or date of patient last news. Monetary values (2002 French francs) were attributed to these quantities on the basis of unit costs and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were calculated. In the Trastuzumab group, median overall survival was significantly higher (37 months vs. 19 months in the non-Ttrastuzumab group, P = 0.001) but total treatment costs were 3 times higher (€ 39,608 vs. € 12,795). The cost per additional life-year saved by Trastuzumab treatment was estimated to be € 27,492 (95% confidence interval: € 20,964-€ 34,020/year of life [bootstrapped estimation]). Our data suggest that despite its high unit price, Trastuzumab should be considered cost-effective in MBC patients to the extent that its incremental cost per life-year saved remains lower than gross domestic product per capita in countries like France.

The Foreign Exchange Option Market, 1917-1921

Foreign exchange option markets were active during and after the First World War. Call options on German marks were the dominant instrument, but calls on French francs, Italian lira, and other currencies also traded. The market evolved from one involving relatively large sums of money per transaction to one focused on tiny retail transactions. The largest clientele for the options consisted of optimistic investors of German heritage. The ultimate focus on less sophisticated investors, and the low status of the entities offering options, provides insight into the perception of option dealers in the early 20th century.

A World-wide Survey of Laws Pertaining to Service Dogs for the Physically Disabled and Current Trends in Enforcement

These remarks analyze the salient features of laws pertaining to service dogs for the physically disabled and current trends in their enforcement in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, and select European countries (the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Russia, Ireland, Finland, and Slovakia). I attempt to identify recent trends in legislation affecting the accessibility of disabled people to public facilities and public transportation in advanced industrial societies.In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) upholds the right of disabled persons accompanied by service animals to access public facilities and transportation and prescribes civil penalties of up to $50,000 for violations of the law. The ADA is enforced by the Department of Justice, particularly the 93 US Attorneys' Offices representing the Federal Government at the district court and court of appeals levels. In the United Kingdom, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) protects the accessibility rights of service-dog users based on the principle of non-discrimination. The Disability Rights Commission provides the machinery for finding remedies and resolving grievances. In Canada, provincial statutes guarantee accessibility rights to guide-dog users.In France, the Special Measures Law to Maintain Social Order protects the rights of guide-dog users, stipulating 2000 French Francs in civil penalties for transgressors, and in Italy, similar protections are afforded by the Law Protecting the Rights of Access of Guide-dog Users to Public Transportation and Shops, which specifies fines of between 500 and 2,500 Euros for violators. In Spain, a Cabinet order and provincial statutory laws guarantee accessibility rights, with large civil fines for violations. In Australia, the rights of service animal users are protected by the Disability Discrimination Act, which ordains up to six months' imprisonment for violations.In New Zealand, guide-dog users are guaranteed accessibility rights by the Human Rights Act, which prescribes up to NZ$3,000 for infringements of the Act. The Dog Control Act also ensures accessibility not only for guide-dog users but also for companion-dog users and trainers, with up to one year's imprisonment for violators. South Korea's Social Welfare Law guarantees guide-dog users access to public places and transportation and imposes up to 2 million won in civil penalties on transgressors.In Japan, we have the Service-Dog Law for the Physically Disabled, which assures the accessibility of service-dog users to public facilities, working places and housing operated by government agencies, public transportation, and non-governmental facilities, but non-governmental working places and housing remain problem areas requiring further efforts by concerned private agencies. At present, these agencies are not liable to any penalties for violations of the law. Moreover, there is no mechanism for finding remedies to problems or resolving grievance for those to whom access is denied.Other countries, such as Russia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, and Slovakia, have no specific laws governing the accessibility of guide-dog users to public facilities and transportation per se, but users enjoy de facto access to government buildings, catering facilities, hospitals, cultural facilities, shops, etc. through the goodwill and support of informed staff members.In conclusion, we note a clear trend in the industrial world toward legalizing the rights of service-dog users to have ready access public facilities and transportation based on the principle of non-discrimination, in accordance with UN international conventions protecting and promoting the rights and dignity of the disabled.

Economic assessment of the secondary prevention of ischaemic stroke with dipyridamole plus aspirin (Aggrenox/Asasantin) in France.

To assess the cost effectiveness of aspirin 25 mg plus dipyridamole 200 mg twice daily in the secondary prevention of ischaemic stroke, according to the French social security perspective, using efficacy data from the second European Stroke Prevention Study (ESPS-2). The ESPS-2 was a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial which assessed the efficacy of four secondary prevention strategies: (i) placebo; (ii) aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) 25 mg twice daily; (iii) dipyridamole 200 mg twice daily; and (iv) aspirin 25 mg plus dipyridamole 200 mg twice daily. We performed a cost-effectiveness analysis with Monte Carlo simulations to compute confidence intervals. We combined data from various sources including the Dijon Stroke Registry, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, Etude du Coût de l'Infarctus Cérébral (Study of the Cost of Cerebral Infarction [ECIC]) study and the ESPS-2 trial. According to our findings, a preventive strategy with aspirin 25 mg plus dipyridamole 200 mg twice daily is associated with net benefits per avoided stroke recurrence amounting to USD 23,932 (95% CI -USD 32,609, USD 35,772) compared with aspirin 25 mg twice daily alone, and USD 31,555 (95% CI USD 4921, USD 74,515) compared with dipyridamole alone (1997 values). Sensitivity analysis demonstrated that dipyridamole plus aspirin was still cost effective when the average cost of adverse effects per episode (ignored in the original estimation of the cost-effectiveness ratios due to a lack of data) was assumed to be USD 8600 (50,000 French francs); this cost is unlikely as most of the adverse effects associated with aspirin plus dipyridamole are only slight to moderate in severity. In the secondary prevention of stroke in France, this study suggests, given its underlying assumptions and data, that aspirin 25 mg plus dipyridamole 200 mg twice daily is likely to be a cost-effective strategy from the social security perspective, when compared with other relevant strategies that were evaluated in the ESPS-2 trial.

Testing for a flexible non-linear link between short-term Eurorates and spreads

This paper investigates the relationship between short-term interest rates and spreads in the Euromarket. Specifically, five Eurocurrency deposit rates are analyzed: the Belgian and French francs, the German mark, the Danish crown, and the British pound. A multivariate test for unit roots is performed and strongly rejects the null hypothesis of integration in the 1-month and 12-months rates of these Eurocurrencies, indicating that the spread cannot be seen as a cointegration vector. Notwithstanding, a codependence analysis shows that the spread can still be interpreted as a long-run relationship between the short- and long-term Eurorates. A flexible non-linear error correction model is then proposed for the short-term rate to take both the short- and long-run adjustments into account. The model fits the data quite well, and seems to provide a slightly better forecast accuracy than the random walk benchmark.

The Role of Transaction Costs for Financial Volatility: Evidence from the Paris Bourse

Minimum price variation rules (tick size rules) in the French stock market prior to 1999 provide a natural experiment on the role of transaction costs for financial price volatility. For stock prices above French francs (FF) 500, the minimal tick size for quotes increases from FF 0.1 to FF 1. This tick size increase generates a 20 percent higher median effective spread and therefore artificially inflates transaction costs. Using the range of the quoted midprice as a tick size robust volatility metric, we calculate 47,213 hourly volatility measures for all CAC40 stocks in the price range from FF 400 to FF 600 and measure the volatility impact of the transaction cost increase at FF 500. We find that the median hourly range volatility is approximately 16 percent higher in the high cost regime. Panel regressions confirm this result at a high level of statistical significance. In the light of this evidence, higher transaction costs in general, and security transaction taxes in particular, should be considered as volatility increasing.

Frequency of hospitalisations and inpatient care costs of manic episodes: in patients with bipolar I disorder in France.

Bipolar disorder is a chronic illness that may involve multiple relapses and result in substantial psychosocial impairment. However, very few recent studies have investigated the economic burden of the disease. To assess the frequency of hospitalisation and the inpatient care costs associated with manic episodes in patients with bipolar I disorder in France. A cost-of-illness study was conducted based on available data using a hospital payer perspective. The lifetime prevalence of manic episodes was estimated from published epidemiological data using a random-effects meta-analysis. Data were obtained by a computerised literature search using the main scientific and medical databases. Additional epidemiological references were identified from published studies and textbooks. Data on frequency of hospitalisation and length of stay were collected from a large psychiatric university hospital. Data on unit costs for inpatient care were obtained from the accounting system of the largest hospital group in Paris, France for the year 1999. Extrapolating from international data on the average prevalence of bipolar I disorder, the proportion of rapid cycling patients and the average cycle duration, we estimated the annual number of manic episodes in patients with bipolar I disorder to be around 265,000 in France. Based on hospital data in Paris, the proportion of manic episodes that require hospitalisation was estimated to be around 63%. The average length of stay was 32.4 days and the hospitalisation-related costs were estimated to be around 8.8 billion French francs (Euro 3 billion) [1999 values]. Our study highlights the lack of medical and economic data on the frequency and hospitalisation-related costs of manic episodes in patients with bipolar I disorder in France. As the lifetime prevalence of bipolar I disorder may be as high as 3% among adults, further studies are required in order to provide representative national data and to allow economic evaluations of costs related to bipolar I disorder in France.

Socio-economic and schooling status of dental undergraduates from six French universities.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the socio-economic status of French undergraduate dental students. A 46-item questionnaire was completed by the dental students of six universities between 1992 and 1995. Subjects related to family background, housing, schooling, income, expenditure and participation in student life were investigated. A total of 1192 out of 1207 questionnaires were returned. Both genders had equal access to dental training. The average overall cost of the four last years of the dental course was 30,302 French francs and varied greatly between faculties, as did the number of hours spent at the faculty for lectures, tutorials and practicals, and clinical work. Overall, the majority of students came from a well off social background, and had a relatively high quality of life while a small minority received no support from their families. Thirty-four per cent of students had never worked. One third of students smoked and one third regularly consumed medication of some sort. A third did not participate in any sport. Only 25% students bought dental text books and 42% of the students reported using the library regularly. This study offers an accurate description of the socio-economic status of French dental students that could be used as a reference for comparable studies in other European countries.

Cognitive euroscience: scalar variability in price estimation and the cognitive consequences of switching to the euro.

The present paper examines the ability to evaluate prices in a familiar currency (French francs, Portugese escudos, or Irish punt) and in an unfamiliar currency (euro). Participants evaluated prices for different items either by selecting the most appropriate price from a set of alternatives (in a timed or not-timed version) or by directly producing a price estimate for each item. The results followed Weber's law: The standard deviation of estimated prices was proportional to their mean. The Weber fraction was stable for the familiar currency in different countries, but was significantly higher for the unfamiliar currency. We suggest that price estimation relies on a learned mapping between items and their prices as represented by distributions of activation on an internal number line. The observed Weber fraction reflects the degree of expertise with a given currency as well as a minimal variability intrinsic to the number line itself.

Vive la France: Minister announces budget and priorities for new aging institute

The outlines of a new French institute for aging research are taking shape. After more than 8 months of discussion, the French minister of research announced in late October that a new Longevity Institute "without walls" will provide 21 million French francs (about US$3M) next year to fund and organize research on genetics, sensory loss, animal models of aging, and assisted-living technologies. Citing an oncoming epidemic of aging, research minister Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg explains the need to better coordinate aging research in the country. "The life expectancy [of the French] is among the highest in the world," he says. By 2011, France will have more people over the age of 60 than under the age of 20. Half the French girls born today are expected to become centenarians, he adds, and an increase in longevity could place the publicly funded health care and pension systems in jeopardy. Étienne-Émile Baulieu, a hormone and reproduction specialist who is vice president of the French Academy of Sciences, led the proposal for the new federal aging initiative and has been named its future coordinator. The leaders of the projects listed as priorities for funding have just learned of the minister's intentions themselves and "haven't started to bargain yet" for shares of the financial pie, Baulieu says. Epidemiologist Philippe Amouyel, who directed the collection of serum and plasma samples for the so-called three city study expected to lie at the heart of the new national aging initiative, says he was "thrilled" to hear Baulieu's announcement. Almost 10,000 people over the age of 65 living in the vicinity of three major cities in France are participating in the longitudinal study, which tracks about 500 variables for each individual. Next year, researchers will start using the data to seek genes and other biological markers associated with the ailments of old age, such as stroke, dementia, and hypertension. The new national institute has targeted other areas as well. It is prioritizing research on disorders of vision, hearing, and balance and plans to create a national breeding center and tracking repository for animals used in aging research. In addition, the institute intends to support research on technology that can help the elderly live more comfortable and healthy lives. The fabled goal of retirement at age 60 with a full pension and a French country house might need a petit revision; Schwartzenberg describes the creation of "smart homes" that might have gadgets not only to assist with independent living but also to monitor an elderly person's cardiorespiratory function, cognition, and ability to move around. As a new generation of French citizens vie to beat the longevity record set by their compatriot Jeanne Calment (who died in 1997 at the age of 122), research leaders in the country will be toiling to understand--and put a shine on--those golden years. --Melissa Mertl Further Reading French Ministry of Research http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/english

Cost-effectiveness of the addition of early hormonal therapy in locally advanced prostate cancer: results decisively determined by the cut-off time-point chosen for the analysis

We present a retrospective cost-effectiveness analysis using data from a randomised controlled trial (EORTC 22863) of the addition of early hormonal therapy with a luteinising hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) analogue to radiotherapy in the treatment of patients with locally advanced prostate cancer. Data on the use of medical resources were extracted from the hospital charts of 90 patients recruited into the trial by one French hospital. Costs are assessed from the viewpoint of the French healthcare financing system and adjusted for censoring. Expected costs per patient of each treatment is related to the expected outcome, mean survival time, estimated by a restricted means analysis. The time point of restriction is determined by statistical criteria. In the base case analysis with a cut-off time point at 8.58 years, the combined therapy group (COMB) had a gain in mean survival time of 1.06 years (7.05 versus 5.99 years) and a reduction of average total costs of 12 700 French francs (FF) (58 300 FF versus 71 000 FF). The analysis of uncertainty uses bootstrap techniques with 5000 replicates to examine the joint distribution of cost and survival outcomes. In 76% of the cases, COMB results in longer mean survival time and lower costs than the radiotherapy group (RT). In cases where COMB therapy raises costs (13% of the cases), it is rarely by more than 20 000 FF per patient, no matter the size of the associated survival gain. It is thus highly likely that COMB should be considered a cost-effective option compared with RT for these patients. The exact result of the economic evaluation is decisively determined by the restriction time point selected for the determination of mean survival time, partly also because the average total costs of the two treatments develop entirely differently as a function of the survival time.

Anthology of French Language Psychiatric Texts

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book Forum: TextbooksFull AccessAnthology of French Language Psychiatric TextsJOHN A. TALBOTT, M.D., JOHN A. TALBOTTSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., Baltimore. Md.Published Online:1 Feb 2001https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.158.2.332AboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail This is a fascinating book edited by three prominent French psychiatrists (colleagues and friends of mine for many years) that presents a comprehensive anthology of writings that have appeared in French from 1792 to almost the present. Many of the authors featured should be well-known by Americans, e.g., Pinel and Janet; some probably unknown, e.g., Daquin and Ey; some recognizable through syndromes named after them, e.g., Briquet, Tourette, Capgras, and de Clérambault; and some whom one might reasonably consider as “ringers,” e.g., Bleuler, Freud, and Serbsky (he who was tagged with discovering the diagnosis of “sluggish schizophrenia” pinned on Soviet dissidents, but who was the opposite in orientation to those serving the Soviet state apparatus). But all have made significant contributions to psychiatry, especially psychiatry in France. The anthology is lifted from the level of its genre because of introductory passages to the section on each author, which are well written, informative, and nicely translated, providing delightful nuggets of information in an unexpected manner. Let me give you some examples:Joseph Daguin (1732–1815) is the first author discussed in the volume. Daguin wrote the first real psychiatric text in France, unfortunately (for Americans who regard such titles as stereotypic of French science) titled The Philosophy of Madness, in 1791. What Daguin espoused was really supportive psychotherapy in the context of moral treatment, which he was the first to articulate. Before Pinel, whom he admired, he saw the mentally ill as people suffering from illness who needed treatment, not just incarceration. He also advocated a variety of active treatments (psychological and biological), including what may be the first description of electroshock therapy.Philippe Pinel (1745–1826), the second author featured, whom we Americans credit with being the first person in the world to see the mentally ill as people and strike off their chains, was actually preceded not only by Daguin but by the warden of the Bicêtre, Jean-Baptiste Pussin, who was the first to strike off the chains of the male patients there and who was then brought by Pinel to the Salpétrière to do the same in the female section (1802). Pinel, too, wrote a text (as did many of the French psychiatrists featured in this volume), classifying illnesses according to a system he perfected in more than 800 patients.I could go on with other explications about each specific author mentioned in the book but will instead provide only a few of the gems that I found fascinating, regarding several of the 33 psychiatrists featured in the book. These include the following:•Esquirol, who instigated the law of 1838 that mandated asylums in each French département (governmental area).•Itard, who treated the wild boy of Aveyron (1801–1805).•Moreau, who studied hashish and hallucinations.•Lasegue, who was fascinated by female shoplifters (1880) and male “energetic masturbators,” and who was the first to describe shared delusion (1887), e.g., folie à deux.•Azam, who described “double life,” whose modern equivalent is multiple personality disorder.•Magnan, who railed against the use of absinthe, among other drugs, and coined the term “dipsomania.”•Cotard, who described “nihilistic delusions,” e.g., the belief that one has no organs inside one’s body.•Bernheim, who coined the terms “psychotherapy” and “psychobiology.”•Binet, who in addition to his work on intelligence was interested in fetishism and human calculators.All in all, this was a pleasant read. I enjoyed the book over a several-week period, during which I dipped in and out of all these famous psychiatrists’ histories, passions, and writings. However, I suspect it is a book whose appeal will not be universal but mainly limited to those with a love of France and French culture.Edited by Françoise-Régis Cousin, Jean Garrabé, and Denis Morozov in collaboration with the World Psychiatric Association; translated by John Crisp. Le Plessis-Robinson, France, Institut Synthélabo pour le progrès de la connaissance, 1999, 552 pp., 198 French francs (paper). FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited By Volume 158Issue 2 February 2001Pages 332-332 Metrics History Published online 1 February 2001 Published in print 1 February 2001