Bourneville

Bourneville (Desir-Magloire Bourneville, 1840-1908), French neurologist and psychiatrist; student and collaborator of Charcot, editor of his famous lectures "Lecons du Mardi" (1872), founder of "Progres medical" and "Archives de Neurologie" (1873), author of research on epilepsy and hysteria, who became famous for his works on idiocy and mental retardation. French medicine owes to B. a radical reform of the entire system of care, treatment, and education of idiotic and epileptic children, whose fate in shelters and hospitals in the mid-19th century differed little from the fate of the mentally ill in the era before Pinel: they were neglected in every respect and thousands perished (for example, at Bicêtre, where B. began his activities). In 1883, B. obtained a special fund for the organization of therapeutic-pedagogical institutions, the projects of which he presented to the government and the Paris municipality. B. was a philanthropic physician and social reformer in the best sense of the word, the creator and founder of all modern defectology.