zhäN märtăNˈ shärkōˈ, 1825–93, French neurologist. He developed at the Salpêtrière in Paris the greatest clinic of his time for diseases of the nervous system. He made many important observations on these diseases, described the characteristics of tabes dorsalis, differentiated multiple sclerosis and paralysis agitans, and wrote on many neurological subjects. Charcot's insight into the nature of hysteria is credited by Sigmund Freud, his pupil, as having contributed to the early psychoanalytic formulations on the subject.

See biography by G. Guillain (1959); study by A. R. Owen (1971).

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