 - Appareil Volta-Faradique à
double courant de Duchenne de Boulogne,
construit par Charrière
- Musée
d'histoire de la
médecine, 12
rue de l'Ecole de Médecine Paris 6°
-
- "En créant l'électrisation
localisée, Duchenne de Boulogne montra
que si l'on place sur la peau deux
rhéophores humides d'un appreil à
courant induit, le courant traverse la peau et
localise son action sur les nerfs et muscles
sous-jacents. C'était une grande
découverte qui servit à traiter
les maladies nerveuses" Daremberg
-
- Médecin français
(Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1806 - Paris, 1875) Né
en 1806 à Boulogne-sur-Mer, Guillaume
Duchenne est considéré comme l'un
des plus grands cliniciens du XIXème
siècle et le fondateur de la neurologie.
Elève de Cruveilhier, Velpeau et
Magendie, médecin sans statut hospitalier
officiel, il impressionne par la rigueur de ses
expériences, ce qui lui vaut de la part
de Jean Martin Charcot le titre de
"maître".
-
- Duchenne apparaît comme un pionnier
dans l'utilisation de
l'électricité comme instrument
d'investigation physiologique. L'usage du
courant alternatif lui permet de stimuler avec
beaucoup de précision un seul faisceau
musculaire à la fois. Grâce
à cette technique, il décrit
plusieurs affections et localise leur origine :
c'est le cas d'une forme d'atrophie musculaire
qui porte aujourd'hui son nom (myopathie de
Duchenne) et du tabès. Il travaille
également sur la poliomyélite,
individualise pour la première fois
chacun des muscles de la face et inaugure la
technique de la biopsie en inventant un
instrument permettant de prélever des
échantillons de tissu à
l'intérieur du corps.
-
- Duchenne publie divers travaux parmi
lesquels De l'électrisation
localisée (1855) et Physiologie des
mouvements (1867). Il meurt à Paris,
quelques jours avant son soixante-dixième
anniversaire.
-
- G. B. Duchenne de Boulogne occupe une place
très importante dans les débuts de
la photographie médicale. Il est
certainement le premier clinicien
français à en saisir l'importance
et à l'utiliser systématiquement
C'est dès 1852 qu'il eut l'idée de
représenter à l'aide de la
photographie l'action propre des muscles. Les
premiers clichés de Duchenne concernaient
un champ particulier du savoir, celui de
l'expression des passions. Il désirait
comprendre l'action propre de chaque muscle du
visage à l'aide de la faradisation, en
vue de dresser un tableau montrant une
corrélation entre la contraction d'un
muscle ou d'un groupe de muscles
déterminés et l'expression d'une
passion précise. Ainsi, Duchenne
s'adressait à deux publics
différents, d'abord à celui des
médecins et des chercheurs, mais
également à celui des artistes
pour les aider dans l'étude et le rendu
des expressions.
-
- En 1855 publie "De l'électrisation
localisée et de son application à
la pathologie et à la
thérapeutique".
- En 1858 et 1859, il publie plusieurs
articles sur le tabès, l'atrophie
musculaire, l'ataxie locomotrice et la paralysie
faciale. "De l'ataxie locomotrice progressive "
dans Arch. gén. méd. 1858. 12.
641-652, 13. 36-62, 158-181, 417-451,
- en 1860 "Paralysie musculaire progressive de
la langue, du voile du palais et des
lèvres" ; affection non encore
décrite comme espèce morbide
distincte dans Arch. gén. méd.
1860. 16. 283-296, 431-445.
-
 - Duchenne de Boulogne
- (Institut Myologie, La
Salpêtrère, Paris)
-
-
- Stanley
Finger
- Origins of Neuroscience
Oxford Ed
- Duchenne de Boulogne. After studying
medicine in Paris, Duchenne returned to his home
town of Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1831 to set up a
clinical practice. He remained there for a few
years, but after his wife died lie returned to
Paris to spend most of his time at the
Salpêtrière. Surprisingly, Duchenne
never held an official teaching or hospital
position, even after he had achieved
considerable fame His expressed goal was to be a
"searcher," not to be "riveted" to a hospital
ward.
-
- Duchenne maintained a longstanding interest
in electricity (faradism) as a means of
stimulating the skeletal muscles. He was
especially interested in the facial muscles of
expression. In 1850, he began his work on
faradic stimulation of these muscles with an
induction coil. In 1860, Jean-Martin Charcot,
Duchenne's close personal friend established the
first clinical photography department in a
hospital. Apppriately, this was at the
Salpêtrière, where Duchenne spent
many hours pursuing his science. In 1862, he
published the second edition of his
Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine, a
scholarly volume now accompanied by a separate
atlas of 84 original photographs.
-
- Duchenne accomplished many firsts,
especially in his Mécanisme de la
Physionomie Humaine. He was the first to combine
clinical photography with faradism, the first to
illustrate a medical publication with original
photographs, and the first to record facial
expressions as they related to systematic
stimulation of the facial muscles.
-
- Duchenne used models for some of the
photographs in his Mécanisme de la
Physionomie Humaine, but apologized for the
amateurishness of some of his items. One problem
was that his films lacked light sensitivity, so
that he was often forced to take pictures in
front of windows with people staring into the
sunlight. A second problem was that the
subject's eyes and nose could not be put into
simultaneous focus with the lenses available
between 1855 and 1857. Although the depth of
field problem was solved by 1862, Duchenne
wanted to include his original photographs in
his books because he considered some of this
material unique.
-
- On a theoretical level, Duchenne postulated
that there was a specific facial muscle for each
emotion. He painstakingly applied localized
faradic stimulation to the various facial
muscles and studied the results, many of which
lie photographed. He found some muscles highly
expressive of emotion, others somewhat
expressive, and still others inexpressive. In
addition, some muscles were found to be
complementary to others. Duchenne classified
those facial muscles expressive of the emotions
in part on the basis of the specific emotions
that the muscle movements seemed to convey. He
called the Zygomaticus major the "muscle of
joy." Certain other muscles were termed "muscles
of disdain and doubt," and some were called
"muscles of crying."
-
- In the supplementary "aesthetic" section of
the Méchanisme de la Physionomie Humaine,
Duchenne applied his findings toi paintings and
sculpture. He examined the emotions in several
paintings and explained them on the basis of his
new theory of human facial expression.
Occasionally he noted that artists depicted two
muscles fixed in positions which could not
possibly be occurring simultaneously. As a
result, he chided some artists for not examining
emotional states more carefully.
- Of course, not everybody agreed with
Duchenne that facial expression depends on the
activity of single muscles.
-
- Nevertheless, he motivated scientists to
think about the emotions in a more scientific
way. As for the future of his applied
photography, the advantages it offered attracted
many scientists to adopt his methods. For
example, Charles Darwin (1872, p. 147) later
wrote, "It is easy to observe infants whilst
screaming; but I have found photographs made by
the instantaneous process the best means for
observation, as allowing more deliberation.
-
- Histoire
du bâillement
-
-
|
