Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2193

JOSEPH FRANCOIS FELIX BABINSKI (1857-1932) Démembrement de l'hystérie traditionnelle, pithiatisme. Imprimerie de la Semaine médicale 1909 30 pp. 24 cm.

Babinski's parents came to Paris from Poland in 1848 and that is where Joseph was born and educated. He graduated in medicine from the University of Paris in 1885 and soon joined the Salpêtrière where he became chief of clinic under Charcot (see No. 1918 ff.) in 1887. He was director of the neurological clinic at the Hôpital de la Pitié from 1890 until his retirement in 1927. He described his cutaneous plantar reflex--Babinski's sign--at a meeting of the Société de Biologie in 1896. Although Remak (see No. 1818) had first reported the sign in 1893, it was Babinski who first recognized its significance as a diagnostic tool. He made many other important contributions to neurology during his career; among the most significant were: the Argyll-Robertson pupil in cerebrospinal syphilis as evidence of a structural lesion in the central nervous system, cerebellar symptomatology including asynergia and adiadokokinesis, combined flexion of the trunk and thigh, the syndrome of dystrophia adiposogenitalis, (with Nageotte) the tegmental medullary syndrome, the reflexes of defense, and deep and superficial reflexes. With several other noted Parisian neurologists, he founded the Société de Neurologie de Paris and for many years he served as editor of the Revue Neurologie. Babinski studied hysteria for many years and developed criteria for distinguishing hysterical symptoms from those caused by organic lesions of the nervous system. He called his concept of hysteria "pithiatisme" and believed that the symptoms could be elicited by suggestion and abolished by countersuggestion. He showed that hysterics never exhibited physical signs which could not be voluntarily reproduced and that the reflexes remained unaltered in hysterical palsies. In the present tract, Babinski's chief aim is to present arguments and observations that support his theories of pithiatism while urging that the traditional methods of therapy for hysteria be abandoned.

See Related Record(s): 1918 1818

Gift of John Martin, M.D.