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

neurological Neurology (from , "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 nervous system, which comprises the brain, the s ...

physician. He was born in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

and received his training in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where he was the student of Jean Martin Charcot (1825–1893) and Louis-Antoine Ranvier (1835–1922). He served as dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the

University of Bordeaux The University of Bordeaux (, ) is a public research university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and Talence. There are al ...

– 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 In France, the () is the most competitive and prestigious examination for civil service in the French public education A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all stu ...

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. It is the largest site of Neuron, neural integration in the central nervous system, and plays ...

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 disease. 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 the context of modern medical treatme ...

. 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 Hysteria is a term used to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, female hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that the bas ...

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 kilog ...

s (1902). His studies of peripheral neuritis were published in volume 36 of Augustin Nicolas Gilbert 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 ganglion, dorsal root ganglia of the spinal cord (nerve root). These pati ...

. 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 In most terrestrial mammals, the scrotum (: scrotums or scrota; possibly from Latin ''scortum'', meaning "hide" or "skin") or scrotal sac is a part of the external male genitalia located at the base of the penis. It consists of a sac of skin ...

and testicles in tabes dorsalis.Medilexicon
(medical dictionary)

References

External links

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