Brouillet's Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière as an epistemic tool in Charcot's research on hysterical amnesia.

Abstract

Much has been written, mostly in overly critical terms, about Jean-Martin Charcot's use of images in his hysteria research. Besides the images of patients Charcot produced for his clinical research, one other image has preoccupied present-day scholars-André Brouillet's painting Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière. Unveiled at the 1887 Salon in Paris, this life-sized painting depicts Charcot lecturing on hysteria to his male audience while presenting a swooning female patient. For many present-day critics, Brouillet's painting symbolizes Charcot's purported misuse of his female hysteria patients. Contrary to such interpretations, this article shows that Brouillet's painting did not merely serve as an iconic visual representation of Charcot's hysteria research but was also used by Charcot as an active epistemic tool in his research on hysterical amnesia. Through a close reading of Charcot's only published lecture on hysterical amnesia, which he held on December 22, 1891, I analyze the process through which Charcot generated new medical insights into hysterical amnesia. I thereby trace the decisive role that Une leçon clinique played in this process.