Jean-Martin Charcot and Parkinson's disease: Teaching and teaching materials

James Parkinson's 1817 seminal article was not well known in France until 1861, when Jean-Martin Charcot and his friend, Alfred Vulpian, published a detailed description in French of paralysis agitans. Their article provided clinical information to help French physicians make an accurate diagnosis by considering gait, shaking and rigidity as well as masked facies. As Charcot always had a strong desire to teach, this article describes his lessons on Parkinson's disease from 1868 to 1888, and also examines the teaching approach he used to pass on his latest findings to his students and colleagues. Charcot also used his role as thesis advisor to disseminate Parkinson's work, and seven of the theses he oversaw, which until now have been overlooked, reveal another facet of his teacher-student relationship. These dissertations provided Charcot with an opportunity to highlight what he had already identified concerning what is today referred to as 'Parkinson-plus syndromes'. Finally, this report concludes with an historical survey of the teaching materials that Paul Richer and Albert Londe developed for the Master at La Salpêtrière to provide him with visual documentation.