Pathology and Visual Culture: The Scientific Artworks of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot and the Salpêtrière School
Natasha Ruiz-Gómez, "Pathology and Visual Culture: The Scientific Artworks of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot and the Salpêtrière School"
English | ISBN: 0271096802 | 2024 | 224 pages | EPUB | 57 MB
English | ISBN: 0271096802 | 2024 | 224 pages | EPUB | 57 MB
In this book, Natasha Ruiz-Gómez delves into an extraordinary collection of pathological drawings, photographs, sculptures, and casts created by neurologists at Paris’s Hôpital de la Salpêtrière in the nineteenth century. Led by Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893) and known collectively as the Salpêtrière School, these savants-artistes produced works that demonstrated an engagement with contemporary artistic discourses and the history of art, even as the artists/clinicians professed their dedication to absolute objectivity.
During his lifetime, Charcot became internationally famous for his studies of hysteria and hypnosis, establishing himself as a pioneer in modern neurology. However, this book brings to light the often-overlooked contributions of other clinicians, such as Dr. Paul Richer, who created “scientific artworks” that merged scientific objectivity with artistic intervention. Challenging conventional interpretations of visual media in medicine, Ruiz-Gómez analyzes how these images and objects documented symptoms and neuropathology while defying disciplinary categorization.
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