[Charcot and his legacy to medicine]. / Charcot y su Legado a la Medicina.

ABSTRACT

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) was a French physician whose professional life is divided into two phases the first dedicated to neurology, and the second dedicated to the psychiatry area. Charcot is considered the father of modern neurology. In the Hospice de la Salpêtrière he began his research on neurological diseases, founded a laboratory of pathology (including microscopy and photography), and gave hospital classes based on pathological anatomy related to clinical manifestations based in the field of neurology. His research led to the description and study of different neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, lateral amyotrophic sclerosis, hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy, motor ataxia, Parkinson`s disease, Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, epilepsy, visual aphasia and agnosia, to name a few. Some signs and diseases took their name as an eponym, and some are still mentioned in the current medicine, while others are left in oblivion.