[The Salpêtrière from Mazarin to Charcot]

The edict of 1656 creating the Hôpital Général for sheltering the incapacitated and beggars assigned women to the Salpêtrière which kept its name of Petit-Arsenal (1636). Mazarin contributed generously to the construction. The completion of the facade (1756) imparted a final shape to the overall plan that had been uncertain for a long time. The Infirmerie générale (1780-1787) made a start toward medicalization, while the loges housed the insane under better conditions. For the Salpêtrière (named in 1837 Hospice de la Vieillesse-Femmes [Hospice for old Women]), it was the era of the alienists, renown for Pinel, his students and successors. In 1862 Charcot undertook the cultivation of its "inexhaustable resources". A laboratory in the avant-garde of microscopy became the basis for the anatomo-clinical method. In ten years Charcot laid the foundations of neurology: multiple sclerosis, locomotor ataxia, physiological anatomy of the cord, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, etc. After his work on motor localization (1875), hysteria became his prime subject. Between 1877 and 1881, he built a service that became a model: laboratories, related clinical departments, a polyclinic (an putpatient department, a short-term hospital). The creation in 1882 of the clinical chair for diseases of the nervous system crowned the enterprise. The formal lectures on Fridays and the Tuesday clinical conferences attracted an audience from around the world. Charcot and his school made the Salpêtrière synonomous with neurology.