Philippe Pinel

Philippe Pinel (1745-1826), French physician, was born at the château of Rascas, Saint-Andre, in the department of Tarn, France, on the 20th of April 1745. He studied at Lavaur and afterwards at the university of Toulouse, where he took his doctor's degree in 1773. From Montpellier he removed in 1778 to Paris, engaging there chiefly in literary work connected with his profession. His first publication was a French translation of William Cullen's Nosology (1785); it was followed by an edition of the works of G. Baglivi (1788), and in 1791 he published a Traite medico-philosophique de l'alienation mentale. In 1792 he became head physician of the Bicetre, and two years afterwards he received the corresponding appointment at the Salpetriere, where he began to deliver a course of clinical lectures; these formed the basis of his Nosographie philosophique (1798; 6th ed., 1818), which was further developed in La Medecine clinique (1802). Pinel was made a member of the Institute in 1803, and soon afterwards was. appointed professor of pathology in the Ecole de Medecine. His fame rests entirely upon the fact that he was among the first to introduce the humane treatment of the insane. He died at Paris on the 26th of October 1826.