Revealing sparks: John Wesley and the religious utility of electrical healing

Mineral waters, electricity, and hemlock: devising therapeutics for children in eighteenth-century institutions

The development of paediatric medicine as a formal field of medical specialisation is usually traced to the mid-nineteenth century at the earliest. While it is true that formal specialisation in children's medicine was not, on the whole, typical for eighteenth-century medical practitioners, many displayed a deep and lasting interest in the diseases of children, and were consequently eager to develop therapeutic practices which could be targeted at infants and children. This led to a variety of attempts at innovation, many of which benefitted from the co-operation of, and opportunities afforded by, institutions. By examining the efforts of several medical practitioners at the London Foundling Hospital and at the Dispensary for the Infant Poor, this article explores how eighteenth-century medical practitioners used their affiliations with institutions to address the problems of devising or adapting therapeutic practices and treatments for children. In tailoring medical practice to suit children and, more specifically, in using institutions to do so, medical practitioners were demonstrating that child patients required special consideration, that children's diseases could be managed medically and with the benefit of new approaches and methods, and that children's health, as a whole, was the province of medical practitioners.

Chapter 40: history of neurology in France

The history of neurology in France is characterized by the very high degree of centralization in that country where "everything seems to happen in Paris," and yet the considerable degree of autonomous diversity in the evolution of some other medical schools such as Montpellier and Strasbourg. It could be argued that France saw the birth of clinical neurology as a separate discipline since Jean Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière Hospital obtained a chair of diseases of the nervous system in 1892, a first in the history of the academic world. The chapter shows, however, that the work of Charcot was preceded by a long evolution in medical thinking, which culminated with the introduction of experimental medicine developed by Claude Bernard and François Magendie, and by the study of aphasia by Paul Broca and its localization of language in a specific area of the brain. Many of the great neurologists of France like Duchenne de Boulogne, Gilles de la Tourette, Joseph Babinski and Pierre Marie gravitated around Charcot while others like Charles-Edward Brown-Sequard and Jules Dejerine developed their talents independently. The history of Sainte-Anne Hospital further illustrates this independence. It also shows the relation between neurology and psychiatry with Henri Ey, Jean Delay and Pierre Deniker, who collaborated with Henri Laborit in the clinical development of chlorpromazine. Sainte Anne also saw the birth of modern neuropsychology with Henry Hécaen. Jean Talairach and his group developed human stereotaxic neurosurgery and a 3-dimensional brain atlas that is used around the world. The chapter also mentions institutions (the CNRS and INSERM) that have contributed to developments partially independently from medical schools. It concludes with a presentation of schools located outside of Paris that have played a significant role in the development of neurology. Six of the most important ones are described: Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Lyon, and Marseilles.