Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard , also Charles Edward Brown-Séquard (born April 8, 1817 in Port Louis , the capital of Mauritius , † April 2, 1894 in Sceaux ) was a British-French physiologist and neurologist .
Life
Born British (Mauritius had become British in 1814), his father, who died at sea before he was born, was American and his mother was French. While his doctoral thesis was published under the name Brown in 1846, he later called himself Brown-Séquard in order, as he noted, to honor his mother and to stand out from other Browns.
He originally went to Paris in 1838 to become a writer, but after only moderate success as a playwright , he began studying medicine . When his mother, who had accompanied him to Paris, suddenly died in 1843, he fled back to Mauritius in a state of great confusion. Since there was no place for him there, he resumed his studies in Paris with borrowed money. After completing this in 1846, he returned to his home island of Mauritius to practice as a doctor, but went to America in 1852 . Then he came back to Paris before he emigrated to London in 1859 , where he worked as a doctor at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (" National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery "), which was then freshly called "The National Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System including Paralysis and Epilepsy ”was established. There he stayed for about five years, during which he presented his startling views on the pathology of the nervous system and exerted great influence on the young John Hughlings Jackson . In 1861 he was elected to the Royal Society .
After becoming more and more of a workhorse in England, he fled one more time, first to Paris. In 1864 he crossed the Atlantic again, this time his destination was Harvard University , where he was offered a chair in physiology and neuropathology . In 1854 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society , 1867 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1868 to the National Academy of Sciences and 1886 to the Académie des Sciences . In 1867 he gave up the position at Harvard and in 1869, two years later, became a professor at the Paris École de Médecine , before moving to America again in 1873 to practice in New York . Ultimately, he returned to Paris, this time taking French citizenship, succeeding the French physiologist Claude Bernard as Professor of Experimental Medicine at the Collège de France in 1878, a position he held until his death in 1894.
plant
Brown-Séquard was an avid observer and experimental medic. He made great contributions to the study of the blood and the nervous system. He was the first scientist to work out the physiology of the spinal cord and showed that the crossing of the nerve pathways for pain and temperature sensation takes place in the spinal cord itself. A related neurological symptom complex that occurs when the spinal cord is severed on one side was named after him: Brown-Séquard syndrome .
He also produced valuable work on the endocrine system , which has produced the most successful results in the treatment of myxedema to date . In 1856 he recognized the vital importance of the adrenal glands (cf. adrenal insufficiency ) as the location of glands with internal secretion, which he then taught at the University of Paris in 1869. But he was also an advocate of the subcutaneous administration of a liquid obtained from the testicles of house guinea pigs and dogs , the so-called Liquide orchitique , which was supposed to bring longevity - a conviction with which he once made a fool of himself in scientific circles when he reported on it in 1889 how he "rejuvenated" himself with it. This liquid became known as the Brown Séquard Elixir . His research, which has appeared in over 500 publications, especially in the Archives de physiologie normal et pathologique , which he founded in 1868 together with Jean-Martin Charcot and Edmé Félix Alfred Vulpian , covers a wide range of physiological and pathological questions.
literature
- Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Brown-Séquard, Charles Édouard. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 214.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Otto Westphal , Theodor Wieland , Heinrich Huebschmann: life regulator. Of hormones, vitamins, ferments and other active ingredients. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1941 (= Frankfurter Bücher. Research and Life. Volume 1), in particular pp. 9–35 ( History of hormone research ), here: pp. 15–19.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brown-Séquard, Charles-Édouard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Physiologist and neurologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 8, 1817 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Port Louis |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 2, 1894 |
| Place of death | Sceaux |