Jean Marie Marcel Albert Pitres (26 August 1848 – 25 March 1928) was a French

neurological Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

physician. He was born in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...

and received his training in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, where he was the student of

Jean Martin Charcot Jean-Martin Charcot (; 29 November 1825 – 16 August 1893) was a French neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology. He worked on hypnosis and hysteria, in particular with his hysteria patient Louise Augustine Gleizes. Charcot is known a ...

(1825–1893) and

Louis-Antoine Ranvier Louis-Antoine Ranvier (2 October 1835 – 22 March 1922) was a French physician, pathologist, anatomist and histologist, who discovered the nodes of Ranvier, regularly spaced discontinuities of the myelin sheath, occurring at varying intervals ...

(1835–1922). He served as dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the

University of Bordeaux The University of Bordeaux (French: ''Université de Bordeaux'') is a Lists of universities in France, public university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in Southern France, southwestern France. It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bor ...

– appointed 1885. He began his medical studies in Bordeaux, later working as an interne to the hospitals of

(from 1872). In 1877, he defended his doctoral thesis, and during the following year received his agrégation with a dissertation titled "Les hypertrophies et les dilatations cardiaques indépendante des lésions valvulaires". In the late 1870s, with Charles-Émile François-Franck, he performed studies on the excitation of the

cerebral cortex The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. The cerebral cortex mostly consists of the six-layered neocortex, with just 10% consistin ...

and the localization of brain function. Afterwards, he returned to Bordeaux, where from 1881 to 1919, he was to the chair of

pathology Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...

. Pitres died in 1928, at the age of 79, after falling down stairs. Lessons that Pitres gave at the amphitheater in Bordeaux on the following subjects were compiled and published: hysteria and hypnotism (1891), amnesic aphasia (1897),

paraphasia Paraphasia is a type of language output error commonly associated with aphasia, and characterized by the production of unintended syllables, words, or phrases during the effort to speak. Paraphasic errors are most common in patients with fluent for ...

(1898) and physical signs associated with

pleural effusion A pleural effusion is accumulation of excessive fluid in the pleural space, the potential space that surrounds each lung. Under normal conditions, pleural fluid is secreted by the parietal pleural capillaries at a rate of 0.6 millilitre per k ...

s (1902). His studies of peripheral neuritis were published in volume 36 of

Augustin Nicolas Gilbert Augustin Nicolas Gilbert (15 February 1858 – 4 March 1927) was a French physician. He was born in the town of Buzancy, Ardennes, and died in Paris. He received his doctorate from the University of Paris and became an interne at the Hôtel-Dieu ...

and Paul Carnot's ''Nouveau traité de médeine et de thérapeutique''. With Leo Testut (1849–1925), he was co-author of ''Les nerfs en schémas, anatomie et physiopathologie'' (1925). His name became associated with

and with

tabes dorsalis Tabes dorsalis is a late consequence of neurosyphilis, characterized by the slow degeneration (specifically, demyelination) of the neural tracts primarily in the dorsal root ganglia of the spinal cord (nerve root). These patients have lancinating n ...

. The term "Pitres' sign" refers to

hypoesthesia Hypoesthesia or numbness is a common side effect of various medical conditions that manifests as a reduced sense of touch or sensation, or a partial loss of sensitivity to sensory stimuli. In everyday speech this is generally referred to as nu ...

of the

scrotum The scrotum or scrotal sac is an anatomical male reproductive structure located at the base of the penis that consists of a suspended dual-chambered sac of skin and smooth muscle. It is present in most terrestrial male mammals. The scrotum co ...

and

testicles A testicle or testis (plural testes) is the male reproductive gland or gonad in all bilaterians, including humans. It is homologous to the female ovary. The functions of the testes are to produce both sperm and androgens, primarily testostero ...

in tabes dorsalis.Medilexicon
(medical dictionary)

References

External links

biography {{DEFAULTSORT:Pitres, Albert 1848 births 1928 deaths French neurologists Physicians from Bordeaux University of Bordeaux faculty