Jean Lhermitte


Jacques Jean Lhermitte was a French neurologist and neuropsychiatrist.

Life

Lhermitte was born in Mont-Saint-Père, Aisne, son of Léon Augustin Lhermitte, a French realist painter. Following his early education at Saint-Etienne, he studied in Paris and graduated in medicine in 1907. He specialised in neurology and became Chef-de-clinique for nervous diseases in 1908, Chef de laboratoire in 1910, and professeur agrégé for psychiatry 1922. He later became Médecin des Hôpitaux at the "Hospice Paul Brousse", head of the foundation "Dejerine", and clinical director at the Salpêtrière Hospital.
During World War I, Lhermitte studied spinal injuries and became interested in neuropsychiatry. This led to publications on visual hallucinations of the self. A deeply religious man, he explored the common territory between theology and medicine, and this led him to interesting studies on demoniacal possession and stigmatisation.

Medical eponyms

Lhermitte was a noted clinical neurologist, and a number of medically relevant eponyms bear his name: