Jean-Baptiste Pussin (1746–1811) was a hospital superintendent who, along with his wife and colleague Marguerite, established more humane treatment of patients with

mental disorders A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

in 19th-century France. They helped physician

Philippe Pinel Philippe Pinel (; 20 April 1745 – 25 October 1826) was a French physician, precursor of psychiatry and incidentally a zoologist. He was instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of ps ...

appreciate and implement their approach which, together with similar initiatives in other countries, became known as

moral treatment Moral treatment was an approach to mental disorder based on humane psychosocial care or moral discipline that emerged in the 18th century and came to the fore for much of the 19th century, deriving partly from psychiatry or psychology and partly fr ...

Events

Jean-Baptiste was born in 1746 in

Lons-le-Saunier Lons-le-Saunier () is a Communes of France, commune and capital of the Jura (department), Jura Department, eastern France. Geography The town is in the heart of the Revermont region, at the foot of the first plateau of the Jura massif. The Jur ...

, France, where he worked as a tanner. In 1771 after being successfully treated for scrofula (

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

of the neck) at

Bicêtre Hospital The Bicêtre Hospital is located in Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It lies 4.5 km (2.8 miles) from the center of Paris. The Bicêtre Hospital was originally planned as a military hospital, with constru ...

, Pussin was recruited as a member of the hospital staff. In 1784 he attained the position of superintendent of the mental ward, and from 1786 was assisted there by his wife Marguerite. Pussin advocated a relatively humane treatment, engaged in psychologically-based work with patients, and maintained records regarding his empirical observations and therapeutic proposals. In 1793 he was visited at the Bicêtre by physician

(1745-1826), who had just started work at the hospital. Pinel was impressed by Pussin's approach and the positive results he had achieved. In 1797, after Pinel had left, Pussin instituted a reform that permanently banned the use of all chains to restrain patients. Straitjackets continued to be used, however. Not long after Pinel was assigned to the Salpêtrière Hospital, he arranged to have Pussin move there with him, as a special assistant. Chains were then banned there also. In 1801 Pinel published his ''Treatise on Insanity'', which describes their work. In 1809, in the second edition of the ''Treatise on Insanity'', Pinel reports Pussin’s initiative to ban the use of chains. Jean Baptiste Pussin died in 1811.

Clinical approach

In Pinel's 1801 ''Treatise on Insanity'', he acknowledges his indebtedness to Jean-Baptiste and Marguerite Pussin and their pioneering contributions to

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psych ...

. Pinel states that Jean-Baptiste Pussin often defined the psychological approach to be used, because "he lived amongst the insane night and day, studied their ways, their character, and their tastes, the course of their derangements, knows when to be benevolent, when to be an imposing figure...", allowing him to know the individuals more than a physician could by making his rounds.Gerard, D.L. (1998
Chiarugi and Pinel considered: Soul's brain/person's mind
''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences''. Volume 33 Issue 4, Pages 381 - 403 Pinel describes a case where Jean-Baptiste Pussin "perceived the beginning of a favorable change; wishing to hasten the recovery, he began a series of conversations with the patient in his room, coming gradually to the subject of his delusion. “If you are king,” he said to him, “how come you cannot bring your detention to an end, and why are you mixed up with all these lunatics?” Returning on subsequent days, he continued to talk with him, in benevolent and friendly fashion; he made him see, little by little, the ridiculousness of his pretensions, showed him another patient who had been long convinced of his supreme power and thereby became an object of derision. Shaken by these remarks, he began to question his title of sovereign, and began to recognize his ideas as chimera". Pinel admires the skill of Marguerite Pussin, who was able to alter "the convictions of a man whose life was endangered by his delusional and infuriated insistence on abstaining from any food. Fearlessly she hops and dances, makes joking remarks, until he smiles, and in his lighter mood he accepts nourishment from her".

References

External links

* Robin Pape, Burkhart Brückner
Biography of Jean-Baptiste Pussin
in
Biographical Archive of Psychiatry (BIAPSY)
2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pussin, Jean-Baptiste 1746 births 1811 deaths People from Lons-le-Saunier 18th-century French people 19th-century French people Mental health activists