Jacques-Joseph Moreau

Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours

Jacques-Joseph Moreau (born June 3, 1804 in Montrésor , Indre-et-Loire department , † June 26, 1884 in Paris ) was a French psychiatrist who was also known under the name Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours . He is considered the physician who was the first to systematically study the effects of intoxicating drugs on the central nervous system .

Life and work

He began studying medicine in Tours in the service of the famous Pierre Fidèle Bretonneau (1778–1862). (Note aside: Bretonneau later married in 1856, in a second marriage - at the age of 79 - Moreau's only 19-year-old niece Sophie (1837-1918), which was a scandal at the time ).

After continuing his studies in Paris , Moreau got a job with Jean-Étienne Esquirol (1772-1840) in 1826 , who had just founded his private sanatorium in Charenton-le-Pont .

In June 1830 he received his doctorate - also in Paris - with the work De l'influence du physique relativement au désordre des facultés intellectuell: et en particulier dans cette variété du délire désignée par M. Esquirol sous le nom de monomanie .

Shortly afterwards, Moreau accompanied a patient of Esquirol on a trip to Italy and Switzerland . In 1836 he suggested a second “therapeutic journey” ( voyage thérapeutique ).
Moreau then undertook a multi-year trip to the Orient , which took him from 1836 to 1840 to Egypt , Nubia , Palestine , Syria and Asia Minor . In doing so, he discovered the psychotropic effects of Indian hemp ( cannabis ).

In 1840 Moreau took up a position in the psychiatric department of the Bicêtre in Paris and shortly thereafter became medical director of an institution founded by Esquirol in Ivry.

Moreau founded in 1843 together with Jules Baillarger (1809–1890), François Achille Longet (1811–1871) and Laurent Alexis Philibert Cerise (1807–1869) the journal Annales médico-psychologiques , which is still published today.

Together with Théophile Gautier , Moreau founded the Club des hachichins in Paris in 1844 , to which numerous scientists , writers and artists belonged. The members of the club (including  Charles Baudelaire , Alexandre Dumas , Eugène Delacroix , Honoré de Balzac , Gérard de Nerval , Honoré Daumier , James Pradier and Gustave Flaubert ) met monthly until 1849 at the painter Fernand Boissard in the Hôtel de Lauzun (also Hôtel Pimodan called) on the Île Saint-Louis , a small island on the Seine .

In 1845 Moreau published the 431 page book Du hachisch et de l'aliénation mental . In it he reports good healing successes in 8 "manic" patients. Since Moreau had little hashish available and he could only treat individual patients, he is cautious in his statements. The basic idea of ​​his method lies in the idea of replacing the symptoms of mental illness (especially hallucinations ) with symptoms that can be controlled by drugs and then influencing them positively.

In 1861 Moreau moved to the Hôpital Salpêtrière , where he worked until the end of his life. Even as an 80-year-old, he made regular visits .

Dr. Jacques-Joseph Moreau died on Thursday June 26th 1884. His grave is in the Paris Père Lachaise cemetery , 3rd ^eme division.

Works

• Jacques-Joseph Moreau (de Tours): You hachisch et de l'aliénation mental: études psychologiques. Éditions Fortin, Masson et Cie, Paris 1845, ISBN 3-262-00171-6 .

literature

• Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Moreau de Tours, Jacques-Joseph. 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. 1007.

Web links

• Biography (french)
• Excerpts from Du hachisch et de l'aliénation mental (French)
• electronic edition of the Annales Médico-psychologiques (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Moreau de Tours, Jacques-Joseph. 2005, p. 1007.
2. ↑ Hans Bangen: History of the drug therapy of schizophrenia. Berlin 1992, p. 22.