Chapter 3. History of Dissociation (2) From Hysteria to Dissociation (5)

Charcot: the man who originated the trauma theory of hysteria
It was Jean-Martin Charcot who put hysteria into the medical context by removing some of its stigmata. He was one of those who were fascinated by hysteria that changed their way of looking at things. His encounter with hysterical patients occurred at the Salpêtrière Hospital, a huge institution in Paris that still exists now. When Charcot was there, Salpêtrière held thousands of female patients, and it was like “a city within a city” (Ellenberger, 1979).
 It was in 1862 that Charcot was appointed as the medical director at Salpêtrière and saw many patients with neurological problems. He was among the first physicians to describe an illness later called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and was the first to describe amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (abbreviated ALS, also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease) as well as multiple sclerosis. He is also known as having found a joint illness (“Charcot joint”) .It was after he earned a big fame as a neurologist that he launched on his research on hysteria.

 When he took charge of a ward reserved for female patients suffering from convulsions, he met many impressive hysterical patients. At that time, however, there was no way of telling whether the patient’s convulsion is really a hysterical one or due to epileptic seizure, as there was no electroencephalogram that can distinguish them. That meant that among those who Charcot described as hysterical patients, certain number of them were epileptic patients.





シャルコーの火曜講義　La Salpêtrière à Paris　出典: H. Gourdon de Genouillac. Paris à travers les siècles. Paris, 1882.