Charcot’s Son’s Shift from Medicine to Maritime: “Pourquoi pas?” Free

Jean-Baptiste Charcot, son of the famous neurologist from hôpitaux La Salpêtrière de Paris and father of neurology, began his career as a neurologist as his illustrious father had imposed on him. However, after his father’s death in 1893, he turned to his first love, sailing. We have brought back a copy of Jean-Baptiste’s thesis, sent to Professor Fulgence Raymond, who succeeded Jean-Martin Charcot. Jean-Baptiste realized that he could not have a brilliant career if he remained in his father’s shadow.

Jean-Baptiste Charcot was born on 15 July 1867 in Neuilly sur Seine in a Summer house, which belonged to the Charcot family. He was Jean-Martin Charcot’s (1825–1893), second child. Jean-Martin Charcot can be considered a founder of Neurology. His father forced him to study medicine. He came 12th in the externat in 1887. He became a student under Victor Hanot (1844–1896), internist with special interest in hepatology, at the Hôpital Saint Antoine. In 1890, he became a surgical student at the Hôtel Dieu with Jules Tillaux (1834–1904), surgeon and anatomist. In 1890, he came 8th in his internship, first with his father at the Hôpitaux Salpêtrière de Paris and then with Edouard Brissaud (1852–1909) in 1892. Jean-Baptiste and his colleagues Edouard-Emery Blin (1863–1930) and Henri Colin (1860–1930) took notes of the Tuesday lessons at the Salpêtrière de Paris from 1887 to 1889. The Tuesday sessions, termed the Leçons du Mardi (in 2 volumes) were hand-transcribed for the 1887-1888 academic year and published as a transcription lithograph. In 1892, a type-set printed edition with editing by Charcot was circulated widely and translated into several languages, though not English. After his father’s death in 1893, he remained in Brissaud’s department in 1894. Jean-Baptiste published few articles on neurology (see Jean-Baptiste Charcot, “Notice sur les titres et travaux scientifiques,” 1921. His publications include: Coup de feu dans l’oreille. Paralysie faciale. Hémiplégie. Obstruction de la carotide interne. Atrophie musculaire progressive spinale. Poliomyélite antérieure chronique, en 1891 et 1894, with M.-A. Dutil. Trois cas d’arthropathie tabétique bilatérale et symétrique. Paralysie bilatérale du deltoïde. Géromorphisme cutané, with M.-A. Souquest). We have brought back a copy of Jean-Baptiste Charcot’s thesis, sent to Professor Fulgence Raymond (1844–1910), who succeeded Jean-Martin Charcot.

Professor Charcot’s son, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, formerly a neurologist became later a famous maritime explorer. Our aim was to examine the reasons of this shift. Jean-Martin Charcot always insisted that his son Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867–1936), should become a neurologist: “You’ll become a doctor: once you have obtained your diploma, you can do what you like. When you graduate, you can do whatever you want, but until then, you will do what I tell you” [1]. Following his father’s wishes, Jean-Baptiste began studying medicine and became an interne of the Hôpitaux Salpêtrière de Paris in 1891, under the direction of Édouard Brissaud (1852–1909), who was one of his father’s brilliant students. In 1893, the year of his father’s death, Jean-Baptiste was still a student and continued his medical career. In 1895, Jean-Baptiste completed his medical training and defended his doctoral thesis on progressive muscular atrophy [2]. It was his excellent friend, Mr Adolphe Dutil (1862–1929), Charcot’s last head of clinic from 1891 to 1892, who prompted him to tackle this subject. Jean-Baptiste was also very grateful to Albert Gombault (1844–1904), an expert in anatomopathology of the nervous system at the hôpitaux Salpêtrière de Paris. The aim of this study was to demonstrate that the disease known as “Duchenne-Aran muscular atrophy” was an anatomical and clinical entity distinct from other forms of muscular atrophy. Indeed, by 1895, “Duchenne-Aran disease” no longer seemed to exist as a disease, so many other “morbid entities had been found to the detriment of this type” and, among others, in 1865, “Charcot’s disease” was the subject of a first publication, to be named amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1872. In his thesis, Jean-Baptiste Charcot had clearly demonstrated that what we now known as Aran-Duchenne syndrome was common to several diseases with different causes. Diseases that were sorted out and classified during his father’s lifetime [2]. Jean-Baptiste became Chef de Clinique under Professor Fulgence Raymond (1844–1910) in 1894 (Fig. 1). Like his father, Jean-Baptiste was interested in degenerative neuromuscular diseases. His thesis, which was dedicated to his father’s memory, is a review of the studies previously undertaken on neuromuscular atrophy. He thanked the students who were faithful to the Master Jean-Martin Charcot and to the Hippocratic Oath and who took care of his son. Only Joseph Babinski (1857–1932) is not mentioned in the acknowledgements, probably because of his stance on hysteria in the light of Jean-Martin Charcot.

After Charcot senior’s death, the clinical chair for nervous system diseases was temporarily entrusted to Édouard Brissaud. There were a number of potential successors, but only 3 were officially registered: Brissaud, Jules Déjerine (1849–1917), and Fulgence Raymond, young Charcot’s supervisor. In the final vote, Raymond was appointed as Charcot’s successor. Joseph Babinski (1857–1932), and Georges Gilles de la Tourette (1857–1904), friend of Jean-Baptiste, were unable to apply for the chair since they both failed their aggregation examination [3]. The succession of Jean-Martin Charcot may have been too great a challenge for the modest Raymond and it is quite possible that Jean-Baptiste was well aware of this heavy yoke of succession. The flowery thesis dedication that he offered Raymond is more than the protocol would dictate and possibly reflects how the young Charcot struggled to “navigate” (Fig. 1).

After his father’s death, Jean-Baptiste tried to escape his father’s shadow as a physician and as a person. Subsequently, he decided to give up neurology and begin a career as a maritime explorer to pursue his first real love, sailing. In his 1910 book Autour du pôle Sud. Expédition du “Pourquoi pas,” Jean-Baptiste recalls his childhood memories: “I remember the long-forgotten days when I played polar explorer in the garden in the bright sunshine, sitting on an overturned chair which I used as a sleigh ...” [4].

Indeed, at the time, in 1870, of the Franco-Prussians war, Jean-Martin remained in Paris and sent his young children (Jean-Baptiste was 3 years old) to follow their mother to Normandy, first to Caen, then to Dieppe, and to England to stay with friends to England, the Casellas. When Jean-Baptiste returned to France, he soon appeared in his first sailor suit, his little wooden boat in his hand. He really relaxed when he was asked:

– Are you going to be a sailor, little Jean?

– Why not? says the child, straightening his willing head.

Charcot liked to sail to serve, not to sail for the sake of sailing. He sold his first boat, the Courlis in 1893 and had his first real boat built, which he called “Pourquoi Pas.” Charcot had 4 ships entitled “Pourquoi Pas.” The first one, from 1893 to 1896, was a wooden cutter. The second, from 1896 to 1897. The third, from 1897 to 1899, is a steam-powered iron schooner (Scott plan). The fourth is a three-masted (Gautier plan) built by Gautier in Saint-Malo. Launched on May 18, 1908, for his second Antarctic expedition, it was the boat of his life but also the boat of his death [5]. A few years later, he would confide: “Hasn’t my motto always been ‘why not?,’ the summary of my character, a mixture of doubt and willpower.” We can see that this questioning is coupled with determination, with courage, these are the true principles of life that will make him a leader. In an article published in La Vie Illustrée on 6 February 1903, Jean-Baptiste Charcot wrote: “The boat I am having built will be called Pourquoi-Pas? which are the two words I used to write as a child at the bottom of extraordinary, unattainable plans for ships destined to discover the North Pole which that adorned my school books and got me terrible detention ...”

This name opens the door to many questions: the reasons for the shift from medicine to maritime in Jean-Baptiste’s career. First of all, Jean-Baptiste realized that he would never be able to surpass his father on a medical level: “My father couldn’t expect me to equal him in medical science” [6]. Then, as his friend Henry Meige (1866–1940) recalled, Jean-Baptiste was always drawn to the seas:

Charcot! The name is twice illustrious. The father devoted his life to exploring neurology and the son guided generations into new lands, new sciences. He was truly “daddy’s boy, not daddy’s boy’ son.” By forcing France, in spite of itself, to renew its ties with the Antarctic continent discovered by Jules Dumont d’Urville (1790–1842), French naval officer and explorer who took part in several voyages of scientific exploration between 1822 and 1840, he established a current of interest so fruitful that it was to be the source of many an explorer’s vocation.

In 1936, Captain Charcot (Fig. 2) died on board the “Pourquoi pas?” which ran aground on the reefs and put an end to his challenge to cross those frozen lands [7, 8]. Dying on his own terms in a halo of independence and determination, he answered his own question: “Pourquoi pas.” It reminds us of a certain Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who also had a career mapped out for him in neurology [9]. It also evokes the life of Anna Freud (1895–1982), psychoanalyst and daughter of Freud, who in her correspondence with Lou Andreas-Salomé evokes her veneration for her father Sigmund Feud [10].