Esquirol, JEAN ÉTIENNE DOMINIQUE

Esquirol, JEAN ÉTIENNE DOMINIQUE, one of the greatest physicians for the insane, was born at Toulouse, 4th January 1772. He served in the military lazaretto at Narbonne in 1794, and was appointed physician to the Salpêtrière at Paris in 1811. After 1817 he delivered clinical lectures on the diseases of the brain, and their cures; in 1818 his exertions secured the appointment of a commission, of which he became a member, for the remedy of abuses in mad-houses; in 1823 he became inspector-general of the University, and in 1825 first physician to the Maison des Aliénés, while managing his private asylum at Charenton. The July revolution deprived him of all his public offices, and he withdrew into private life. He died 12th December 1840. Esquirol's writings embrace all the questions connected with the treatment of insanity; his influence on the treatment of the insane has been very powerful for good, and most of the modern lunatic asylums in France have been built according to his advice. He published Des Illusions chez les Aliénés (1832) and Des Maladies Mentales (1838).