The enduring mark left by Jean-Martin Charcot on rheumatology

Although Charcot is remembered above all as an outstanding neurologist, he also left a lasting imprint on the study of rheumatic diseases, primarily in two fields. a) He performed a pathologic-nosographic confrontation based on principles that remain relevant in today's era of imaging techniques. His vision as a pathologist allowed him to establish links between nonspecific lesions, which led him to develop a unified concept of chronic rheumatism. At the same time however, his experience as a clinician gave him a sense of the nosologic distinctions that are widely accepted today. b) He analyzed osteoarticular dystrophies associated with neurologic disorders, most notably tabetic arthropathies with epiphyseal fragmentation and in some instances spontaneous fractures. In addition, a constellation of alterations of the synovial membrane, ligaments, and muscles identified in those analyses foreshadowed today's concept of reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome.