Joseph Babinski
| Joseph Babinski | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Joseph Jules François Félix Babinski 17 November 1857 Paris, France |
| Died | 29 October 1932 (aged 74) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Neurology |
| Known for | Babinski sign |
Joseph Jules François Félix Babinski (Polish: Józef Julian Franciszek Feliks Babiński; 17 November 1857 – 29 October 1932) was a French neurologist of Polish descent. He is best known for his 1896 description of the Babinski sign, a pathological plantar reflex indicative of corticospinal tract damage.
Born in Paris, Babinski was the son of a Polish military officer Aleksander Babiński (1824–1889) and his wife Henryeta Weren Babińska (1819–1897) who in 1848 fled Warsaw for Paris because of a Tsarist reign of terror instigated to stall Polish attempts at achieving independence and breaking the union between Congress Poland and the Russian Empire.
Babinski received his medical degree from the University of Paris in 1884. He came early to Professor Charcot at Paris' Salpêtrière Hospital and became his favorite student.
Charcot's 1893 death left Babinski without support, and he subsequently never participated in qualifying academic competitions. Free of teaching duties, while working at the Hôpital de la Pitié he was left with ample time to devote himself to clinical neurology. He was a masterful clinician, minimally dependent on neuropathological examinations and laboratory tests.
Babinski also took an interest in the pathogenesis of hysteria and was the first to present acceptable differential-diagnostic criteria for separating hysteria from organic diseases, and coined the concept of pithiatism.
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Wikipedia