Making Distinctions: The Contribution of Hector Landouzy to Differential Diagnosis in Relation to Hysteria and Epilepsy

Hector Landouzy (1818-1864) is known for his Traité Complet de l'Hystérie (1846), which was crowned by the Académie de Médecine, but this work is not given much importance in historical accounts. It deserves more attention because it was more than an orthodox statement about the nature of hysteria. In the context of the diagnostic confusion between epilepsy and hysteria, it introduced a method of presenting criteria to facilitate diagnosis. An examination of French authors on epilepsy and hysteria in the second half of the nineteenth century suggests that this method probably set the example which was to be followed by later clinicians, including Charcot at the Salpêtrière.     

Next Emperor,Please! No End to Retrospective Diagnostics

Abstract

The beginning of the seventeenth century marked the start of a scientific revolution, which had consequences for medicine. Vesalius in anatomy, and Harvey in physiology, were important figures who gave the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions new impulses. In this period of change in medical thought, Nicolaas Tulp (1593–1674) wrote his ‘Observationes Medicae’ (Tulp, 1641). A controversy existed in The Netherlands, concerning the circulation, with many doctors still adhering to the Galenic tradition. The following analysis discusses some of the neurologic cases from Tulp's book, seen in the light of modern medical thought.