One of the best translated and most charming biographies of a former medical great that I have read in many a month is the story of Jean-Martin Charcot. Georges Guillain prepared the original, J.-M. Charcot, 1825-1893, Sa Vie—Son Oeuvre. This was published by Masson in 1955. Pearce Bailey translated the biography, which in turn was published by Hoeber1 last year. Charcot, of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, the world's first Professor of Clinical Neurology, died in the last decade of the last century. Guillain, of the Guillain-Barré syndrome, identified also as the Landry-Guillain-Barré syndrome or the Guillain-Barré-Strohl syndrome, was a pupil of several of Charcot's pupils. Guillain occupied the same professorial chair in Paris that was created for Charcot.
The biography is as much a story of the Salpêtrière as it is of the clinical life of Charcot. This was inevitable; they were inseparable. Each was a strong