Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne

Duchenne doing one of his experiments

Contraction of various facial muscles after stimulation with electric current (from Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine , 1862)

Guillaume-Benjamin Armand Duchenne de Boulogne (born September 17, 1806 in Boulogne-sur-Mer , † September 15, 1875 in Paris ) was a French physiologist and neurologist.

Life

Guillaume Duchenne was born into a family of seafarers. He studied medicine in Paris and returned to his hometown in 1831. Since 1833 he used electricity as a new form of medical treatment. In 1842 he went to Paris again to further research the electrotherapy he had developed.

He stimulated various facial muscles with electric current through electrodes on the face and wrote a fundamental paper on this "electrophysiological analysis of emotional expression" in Mechanism of Human Physiognomy in Paris in 1862 . His "muscle of joy", which is responsible for smiling , later became the zygomaticus major muscle (large zygomatic muscle, see laughing muscles ). The real smile is called the Duchenne smile after him .

He is also the discoverer of the hereditary muscular dystrophy type Duchenne , which leads to a progressive loss of muscle tissue .

Works

Essai sur la brûlure (1833)
De l'Électrisation localisée et de son application à la physiologie, à la pathologie et à la thérapeutique (1855)
Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine, ou Analyze électro-physiologique de l'expression des passions applicable à la pratique des arts plastiques (1862)
Physiology of the mouvements démontrée à l'aide de l'expérimentation électrique et de l'observation clinique, et applicable à l'étude des paralysies et des déformations (1867)

Individual evidence

^ Paul Girard: History of Neurology , in: Illustrated history of medicine. (Jean-Charles Sournia, Jacques Poulet, Marcel Martiny: Histoire de la médicine, de la pharmacie, de l'art dentaire et de l'art vétérinaire. Ed. By Albin Michel-Laffont-Tchou and colleagues, Paris 1977–1980, 8 volumes) German adaptation by Richard Toellner with the collaboration of Wolfgang Eckart , Nelly Tsouyopoulos , Axel Hinrich Murken and Peter Hucklenbroich, 9 volumes, Salzburg 1980–1982; also as a special edition in six volumes, ibid. 1986, vol. 2 of the special edition, p. 1143.

Web links

Commons : Guillaume Duchenne - collection of images, videos and audio files

Commons : Experiments in physiology. Facial expressions - collection of experimental images from Duchenne's main work

Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne at Google Arts & Culture

personal data
SURNAME	Duchenne, Guillaume-Benjamin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Duchenne de Boulogne, Guillaume Benjamin Amand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH	17th September 1806
PLACE OF BIRTH	Boulogne-sur-Mer
DATE OF DEATH	September 15, 1875
Place of death	Paris

[1] Paul Girard: History of Neurology , in: Illustrated history of medicine. (Jean-Charles Sournia, Jacques Poulet, Marcel Martiny: Histoire de la médicine, de la pharmacie, de l'art dentaire et de l'art vétérinaire. Ed. By Albin Michel-Laffont-Tchou and colleagues, Paris 1977–1980, 8 volumes) German adaptation by Richard Toellner with the collaboration of Wolfgang Eckart , Nelly Tsouyopoulos , Axel Hinrich Murken and Peter Hucklenbroich, 9 volumes, Salzburg 1980–1982; also as a special edition in six volumes, ibid. 1986, vol. 2 of the special edition, p. 1143.