Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T14:05:41.258Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pinel – a revolutionary psychiatrist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2014

Caoimhghin S Breathnach*
Affiliation:
Department of Physiology, University College Dublin, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland

Abstract

The traitement moral, or so-called moral treatment, of insanity was instituted in Paris in 1794 by Philippe Pinel (1745-1826), and the fetters were removed from patients in May-June 1797 by Jean-Baptiste Pussin (1745-1811), lay governor of the insane at the Hospice de Bicetre, and by Pinel and Pussin at the Salpetriere in 1800; the chains were replaced by straitjackets or in some cases removed completely. His contemporaries looked upon Pinel as physician, but it is as a revolutionary psychiatrist that he is revered today.

Type
Historical
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Ackerknecht, EH. Medicine at the Paris Hospital 1794-1848. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
2.Weiner, DB. Philippe Pinel's ‘Memoir on madness’, December 11, 1794: a fundamental text of modern psychiatry. Am J Psychiatry, 1992; 149:723–32.Google ScholarPubMed
3.Astrow, AB. The French Revolution and the dilemma of medical training. Persp Biol Med 1990; 33:444–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
4.Weiner, DB. The apprenticeship of Philippe Pinel: a new document, ‘Observations ofcitizen Pussin on the insane’. Am J Psychiat, 1979; 136:1128–34.Google Scholar
5.Garrison, FH. History of medicine. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1913.Google Scholar