In order to explain various manifestations of hysteria, Charcot came up with the notion of “Grande Hysterie”, which, according to him, has several stages, each having many characteristic symptoms. By postulating this notion many different hysterical manifestations could be understood as either partial expressions or subtypes of any of these stages.
However, what Charcot did was to apply his hypothetical notion to his patients rather than forming a theory based on his patients’ clinical manifestation. As was explained above, his ward held not only hysterical patients but also epileptic patients as well. What is more complicating is that some of his hysterical patients might have been imitating epileptic patients’ demeanors. His idea of grande hysterie could not have been tenable as his clinical population was thus heterogeneous.
Another problem was that Charcot’s patients were reportedly coached on the ward by Charcot’s disciples before introduced to the audience. It was also reported that Charcot was not so interested in seeing patients on the ward and treated only patients that his disciples brought to his office. It is not quite known if Charcot didn’t really know what was happening behind the stage.
Charcot was a quite charming but very narcissistic man who constantly sought prestige and fame. After Charcot’s sudden death, his theory of hysteria was not taken over by any of his disciples as they were the ones who coached and trained the patients for the Tuesday lecture. The most faithful disciple Babinski (a French neurologist who later became well known for his discovery of “Babinski reflex”) only took over his master’s neurological work, practically discarding his work on hysteria.
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