THE DEJERINES - AN HISTORICAL REVIEW AND HOMAGE TO 2 PIONEERS IN THE FIELD OF NEUROLOGY AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF SPINAL-CORD PATHOLOGY

Our purpose, in this number of Spinal Cord devoted to the French speak ing Society of Paraplegia (AFIGAP), is to render homage to two very di stinguished doctors, who by their work at the end of the XIXth and the beginning of our century contributed greatly to our knowledge of the nervous system and in particular the spinal cord (SC). This was at the time a field of considerable interest in France and abroad. Professor Jules Dejerine was from 1911-1917 the holder of the Chair for Nervous System Diseases created for Charcot. Dejerine and his American born w ife, Augusta Klumpke, and had very limited means for investigation com pared to actual technological advances. They relied mainly on their su perb clinical observations and neuropathological examinations. Dejerin e was also a pioneer in the growing field of neuroanatomy. In 1895 he published a treatise on the anatomy of the nervous system, which is st ill considered worldwide to be a masterpiece. Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke , the first woman Intern in Paris Hospitals, was not only a fine clini cian, neuroanatomist and pathologist, but also contributed greatly to her husband's work. Amongst other things she is known for the 'Klumpke palsy'. She was also a pioneer in France, during the First World War and subsequent following years, in the treatment and rehabilitation (m edical and vocational) of the large number of soldiers afflicted by wo unds of the nervous system and especially of the SC. During the same p eriod, many authors contributed to SC pathology, but only a few to the treatment and rehabilitation of these patients. This was brought to o ur attention, in the sixties, by Professor Pierre Houssa, pioneer in B elgium in the field of comprehensive care of those ho have SC lesions. augusta Dejerine-Klumpke also contributed to our present knowledge of heterotopic ossification following a SC injury, including its pathoge nesis. Most of their clinical and pathological findings and discussion s are recorded in Dejerine's famous monograph which was published in 1 914: La semeiologie des Affections du Systeme Nerveux (The Semiology o f the Diseases of the Nervous System).