Eugène Dally (1833–1887) et les liens historiques entre la Société Médico-Psychologique et la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris

The Société Médico-Psychologique (SMP) was founded in 1852, while the Société d’Anthropologie, with the later addition “de Paris” (SAP), was founded in 1859 under the auspices of Broca. Several of its members, including some of the more eminent ones, came from the SMP. These two societies remain very active to this day.ObjectivesThe objectives of these two societies and the issues, which concerned the scientific world, are researched in the work and philosophical options of Dr. Dally (1833–1887), who was an active member and president of the two societies.Materials and methodsThe work of Eugène Dally has been compiled in the collections of the Annales Médico-Psychologiques and in the Bulletins et mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris.ResultsEugène Dally followed in the footsteps of his father Nicolas Dally as both physiotherapist – propagating in France the benefits of gymnastics – and polygraph. A disciple of Littré and an intransigent defender of the positivist doctrine, he was also a convinced anticlerical and he defended his ideas within these two societies which he joined the same year, at the age of 27 years. His career in the SAP was brilliant (he held its chair in ethnology) in the footsteps of Broca, of whom he was a fervent disciple. After his translation of Man's Place in Nature by Th Huxley, which allowed him to defend Darwin's ideas, he introduced the concept of transformism to France and shifted Broca's anti-evolutionist stance. He defended the close links between Man and the higher apes more consequently than Huxley, anticipating the modern works of the primatologists (Frans de Waal). At the SAP he was also a critical adversary of the extrapolations made from dubious anomalies discovered upon examining the brains of criminals with the aim of considering them ill and thus explaining their acts. His arrival in the SMP coincided with the opening, which had been agreed (in sign of goodwill to the new conservative power) to non-medical members from the fields of philosophy, law, history and even religion. His work and his interventions were those of a polemicist battling in the clan of physiologists and materialists against the spiritualists and metaphysicians. Hence he took clear-cut, violently anticlerical positions when the issue of the soul was put on the agenda. The deadlock in the debates on such subjects most likely explains the gradual abandoning of multidisciplinarity within the SMP membership. During discussions in 1863, which brought together all the leading lights of the SMP on the issue of criminal responsibility, Dally equally supported an unequivocal position, setting hardened criminals alongside the ill. Thus he defended – in a conscious manner – a theoretical position which considered social defence only.ConclusionsEugène Dally is the most committed representative of a generation of anticlerical doctors obstinately pursuing the Voltairien combat. His positivist, scientific convictions most likely met with the approval of several members of the SMP who found in him their spokesman. He can be considered to be a forerunner of the movement for social defence and his position on the close ties between Man and the higher apes has more recently proved its relevance.     

Les courants épistémologiques dans les travaux et discussions de la Société Médico-Psychologique

IntroductionThe term epistemology was first used by the Scottish metaphysician James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864), in his book Epistemology or Theory of Knowing (1854). The generalization of its use will not occur until the end of the 19th century in the texts of English and continental philosophers and scientists, and thereafter in North America. The discussions of the members of the Société Médico-Psychologique, created in 1852, were not reflected in the Annales Médico-Psychologiques until 1853, and questions related to epistemology were then assigned to the fields of the philosophy of knowledge or the philosophy of science.MethodologyThis article is based on the approach of comparative epistemology (G.G. Granger), on an historical and clinical approach, on the critical analysis of language, and on the authors’ own research. Epistemology is “a critical study of the principles, hypotheses and results of the various sciences, intended to determine their logical (non-psychological) origin, their value, and their objective significance.”AnalysesThe authors employ the chronological score proposed by G. Lantéri-Laura by showing in parallel the evolution of the questions treated by the philosophy of science, then by epistemology. They analyze successively the impact of the philosophy of science on the Société Médico-Psychologique during the 19th century during the period of 1852–1902, then the anchoring of the epistemological tradition at the Société Médico-Psychologique due to the contribution of Pierre Marchais, and finally, the incursion of the North American approach at the beginning of the 21st century.ConclusionIt is illusory to seek a single, definitive scientific method, which is applicable in all situations, because the scientific objective does not dispense with the relationship to the concrete. For psychiatry, whatever knowledge is presented as new, problems arise from different perspectives, in different contexts, because the dynamics of the development of each discipline or sub-specialty are updated periodically.     

La naissance de la Société Médico-Psychologique. Mise en perspective et regard sur la naissance de l’American Psychiatric Association

The authors retrace the various stages of the birth of the Société Médico-Psychologique (SMP), which celebrated its 170th anniversary in 2022. They recall the context, notably a law enacted in 1838 that was considered as a foundation text for what was then called alienism and which would eventually become psychiatry. The work of Philippe Pinel and Jean Étienne Esquirol played an essential role in the founding of the SMP, and more broadly in the genesis of the discipline. Three phases can be distinguished in the foundation of the SMP: (1) the creation of the Annales Médico-Psychologiques (AMP), in 1843, a journal that would become the SMP bulletin; (2) the first constitution of the SMP which was announced by Jules Baillarger in the first issue of the AMP in 1848 and which included the first organizational rules and a first list of members; (3) For political reasons (The revolution of February 1848, a political coup d’état on December 2, 1851), the foundation of the SMP would officially first take place in 1852. A commission of members modified the first internal rules. A principle was established whereby the Society would be composed of physicians, philosophers, magistrates, clergymen, moralists, teachers, poets, etc. The professional journals announced at the time the establishment of a Society where “all the instruments of psychological analysis will be gathered and applied simultaneously”. The first meeting of the Society was held on the 26th of April 1852. The authors provide a list of the founding members, although there were some notable absences. The relations between the SMP and the Academy of Medicine, founded in 1820, are detailed. The first international members are mentioned. They came from The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Russia, Austria and Germany, and at the end of the 19th century, from America as well During the same time period, similar learned societies were established, notably in the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia. The authors describe in detail the creation of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (ASAMSAII), the future American Psychiatric Association (APA), and of its Journal which would become the American Journal of Psychiatry. The details of joint meetings between the APA and the SMP in 1978 are reported. The birth of the SMP and of other learned societies in Germany, France and the United Kingdom marked the beginning of a discipline which was then called alienism and which would become Psychiatry.     

Les débuts de la Société Médico-Psychologique,entre philosophie et système nerveux central

French psychiatry around 1850 is characterized by the paradigm of unitary alienation (Pinel, Esquirol), the preeminence of the moral treatment, the secondary function of the brain (after the decline of the works of Georget and Bayle and of the phrenology), the development of the asylum system (distinct from general hospitals), the theoretical rivalry between sensationalism or “physiology” (Cabanis) and spiritualism or “psychology” (Maine de Biran). The founders of the Société Médico-Psychologique (Baillarger, Moreau de Tours, Brierre de Boismont) are inspired by the latter, politically conservative, beside their inquiries about the central nervous system. After a slow genesis, between 1843 and 1852, the society begins its reunions during the “authoritary” period of the 2nd Empire. They are characterized by the clinical (on monomania and hallucinations) and forensic discussions between alienists and philosophers around free will. During the decade 1860, the organic theories prevail, through hereditary degeneration (Morel), strengthened by the growth of fundamental sciences and cerebral anatomo-physiology. On the other hand, discussions on classifications and “folie raisonnante” allow the transition towards the paradigm of mental illnesses (J. Falret), later adopted in Germany by Kraepelin.     

Gheel et la Société Médico-Psychologique : relecture d’une controverse

The controversy around the village Gheel, also known as the “village of fools”, which occurred between 1860 and 1870 to the Société Médico-Psychologique has been the subject of several analyzes at different periods of history. In these years of political turmoil, corresponding to liberal turn of the Second Empire, the leading names in French alienism compete around the mode of assistance to insane. Since the seventh century, Gheel host the insane throughout Europe, because the place is reputate to healing. From the early nineteenth century, it is subject to many reforms in order to make a real foster family care. Several psychiatrists therefore see it as a plausible alternative to asylums, increasingly overloaded. In France, the debate is particularly important. The study of the debates held in the Société Médico-Psychologique between 1860 and 1865 and published in the major journals of the day French texts reveals major issues for the discipline. These include consolidating its expertise vis-à-vis lawyers and religious in particular. This also echoes the current issues. Indeed, our period saw the emergence of the concept of experiential knowledge of users, which is proposed as a complementary and not competitive concept of medical knowledge, but this notion is contested even within the profession.     

De l’aliénation mentale de l’enfant et de l’adolescent à la pédopsychiatrie dans les communications à la Société Médico-Psychologique de 1852 à 1937

In 1848, the Société Médico-Psychologique was founded. Its aims is to promote the study and improvement of mental pathology. During the 19th century, François Arnaud (1858–1927), Claude-Etienne Bourdin (1815–1886), Michel Catsaras (1860–1939), Louis Delasiauve (1804–1893), Eugène Dally (1833–1887), Jules Fournet (1812–1888), Paul Garnier (1848–1905), Valentin Magnan (1835–1916), Jacques-Joseph Moreau De Tours (1805–1884), Emmanuel Régis (1855–1918), Paul Sollier (1861–1933), Edouard Toulouse (1865–1947), Auguste Voisin (1829–1898) and Jules Voisin (1844–1920) were the alienists or not, French or foreigners who succeeded at the chair of the Société Médico-Psychologique. This later presented observations of children or teenagers. The communications and discussions but also the issues raised by the alienists, neuro-psychiatrists then child psychiatrists will contribute to the reflections of members of the Société Médico-Psychologique over the course of the last century. But, they also forced us to take a more perceptive look at the child's mental health. Its communications and their authors belong to their time and to a time or even a place where they emerged. Apart from to looking into the topics pursued (deficiency, dementia praecox, epidemic encephalitis, autism, etc.) concerning the infantojuvenile psychiatry, we will carry out a work of communications contextualization focused on the child's mental health at the Société Médico-Psychologique during 170 years.     

Les discussions sur les classifications psychiatriques à la Société Médico-Psychologique (1860–2014)

The Société Médico-Psychologique has devoted in the 19th century two series of discussions during several months about psychiatric classification. In 1860–1861, the discourse of Jules Falret recommends to use the evolutive criteria rather than the psychological one (Delasiauve). It allows the transition from unitary mental alienation to several psychiatric diseases and the decline of the monomanias. The aetiological criteria of Morel are discussed. In the same way, in 1888–1889, the classification of Magnan, axed on mental degeneracy, presented by his pupil Paul Garnier, is not admitted by all. Its opponents propose symptomatic (Dagonet, Ball) or anatomic classifications (Voisin, Luys). The discussion came to nothing, but the word psychosis begins to be currently used. Only 75 years later, the Société Médico-Psychologique debates again about the nosology. Between 1966 and 2014, seven discussions, each during one day (two days in 1994), are brought by clinical innovations or by the publication of official classifications, either French, or international. In 1966, are discussed the progresses involved by psychopharmacology and statistics. In 1978, the French classification of the Inserm is compared with the ICD-9 and the DSM-III, in preparation. In 1988, the clinical applications of the DSM are discussed, but there are always communications about the French classification of delusional disorders and about the paraphrenias. In 1994, the transnosography tries to open the way from a “categorical” classification to a “dimensional” one. In 2001 and 2010, two revised versions of the CFTMEA (French Classification of Mental Disorders of Child and Adolescent) are presented. In 2014, a discussion is devoted to the DSM-5. There is an agreement since 50 years about the interest of “mixed” classifications (symptomatic, evolutive and aetiological), about the necessity to avoid too frequent revisions, to obtain a consensus and to simplify the nosology.     

History of the Société Fran?aise de Neurologie: 1899-1974]

The "Société de Neurologie de Paris", started by 17 founding members all of whom with the exception of Dejerine were students of Charcot, helds its inaugural session on 6th July 1899. It became the "Société Fran?aise de Neurologie" in 1949. Its history is intertwined with that of neurology itself, to whose progress it greatly contributed through the work presented at its monthly sessions and collated in the Revue Neurologique, "the official organ for its publications". The "Réunions Neurologiques Internationales", which began in 1920, increased its prestige and widened its public. Down the years they have borne witness to the preoccupations of the day, reflecting the development of neurology and the prodigious changes that it has undergone. Born under the sign of the anatomico-clinical method, the Society has unceasingly transformed itself in keeping with the evolving science, taking on board all the latest advances in medicine and biology and their associated techniques. It has given birth to neurosurgery, clinical neurophysiology and neuroradiology. The multiplicity of new techniques governing progress in the discipline threatened to have an adverse effect on the integrity of the Society. However, it is within the context of the Society that the wide range of neurosciences can find the federating influence they need to take their place within the corpus of neurology. The history of the Society has also reflected the century through which it has lived, a century which has proved one of the most tragic in the history of the western world. It has suffered its many vicissitudes, which have been fundamental in determining the nature of its work and its sphere of influence.     

History of the Société Fran?aise de Neurologie: 1975-1999]

The history of the French Society of Neurology during the past 25 years is briefly summarised, with special emphasis on the eminent role played by some of its members: Paul Castaigne, of immense stature, and Jean Cambier and Alain Guillard who for many years acted as General Secretary before becoming President. This is followed by a report analysing the scientific work of the Society during the century. It is pointed out that certain topics, such as clinical semiology and infectious pathology, which were much studied in the past, are now largely ignored. Other topics, however, such as multiple sclerosis, vascular pathology, and degenerative pathology are more frequently studied today than in the past. Lastly, an analysis is made of the Society's current membership, from which it is apparent that a special effort will be required on the part of all members to maintain the wide scientific influence that our Society has always exerted.     

Phénoménologie de la curiosité comme rupture temporelle : sur la route de la Beat Generation

Jack Kerouac's famous autobiographical novel “On the Road” tells the epic journey through the magnificent landscapes of the American continent through frantic, jazz-rhythmic writing. In this book, beyond the classical framework of a travel journal, Kerouac aspires to tell a style of existence through a style of writing. The perpetual feast of the senses and the erotic evokes the exalted adventure of the Beat Generation and testify to this style of existence characteristic of what phenomenology calls existential curiosity. In the midst of unexplored landscapes, unexpected encounters, in the aftermath of a flight to be pursued without ceasing, Kerouac aimed at the permanent improvisation, that of the “bebop”, that of the “instant literature”. The writing of a road that takes shape at the moment under the wheels of the car that traces its way as fast as it does erase it. And this is a perpetual quest for novelty, in openness to curiosity. It appears then that the phenomenological notion of this experience of curiosity, makes possible to approach the foundations and the wanderings of the beat generation, and more broadly the experience of the generations, which have succeeded.     

La faible estime de soi est corrélée à l’intentionnalité suicidaire,indépendamment de la sévérité de la dépression

Introduction

Suicide is a major Public Health concern, and low self-esteem might represent a major risk factor. Our main objective was to assess the correlation between self-esteem and suicide intent. More specifically, we aimed to examine the relationship between the different dimensions of self-esteem (total, general, familial, professional and social) and suicide intent. We also sought the role of depression in the relationship of self-esteem to suicide intent.