Paul Sollier, Pierre Janet, and their vicinity.

Paul Sollier (1861-1933) and Pierre Janet (1859-1947) shared the same fate: achieving fame during their lives, then slipping into obscurity. However, their work is highly relevant for describing and explaining hysteria in the tradition of Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893). Both men had their teacher's clinical perspicacity, which enabled them to accumulate detailed clinical and psychological descriptions. These were published in books that achieved success in their day. From his descriptions, Sollier deduced a pathophysiology of hysteria in which a psychic inhibition led to a functional deficit in sensory-motor areas. This is partially confirmed by current functional brain imaging techniques. As for Janet, he developed concepts which are still valid today, involving personality dissociation, what he referred to as 'fixed ideas', and the subconscious. Sollier and Janet both saw hysteria as a response to the trigger of an emotional shock, specific to certain personalities. While the fundamental work by Joseph Babinski (1857-1932) on hysterical paralysis did much to enrich neurological semiology, Sollier contributed a novel description of the pathophysiology of hysteria, and Janet elucidated its psychopathological mechanisms.