Jean Lhermitte

Jacques Jean Lhermitte was a French neurologist and neuropsychiatrist.

Early life and education

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.

Lhermitte became head of the Dejerine Foundation, sponsored by Joseph Jules Dejerine, and clinical director at the Pitié-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 demonic possession and stigmatisation.

Lhermitte was a clinical neurologist. A number of medical eponyms bear his name:

Lhermitte-Cornil-Quesnel syndrome: A slowly progressive pyramidopallidal degeneration
Lhermitte-Duclos syndrome: A rare pathologic entity with hypertrophy chiefly of the stratum granulosum of the cerebellum
Lhermitte-Lévy syndrome: A syndrome of slowly progressing paralysis after a stroke
Lhermitte-McAlpine syndrome: A combined pyramidal and extrapyramidal tract syndrome in middle-aged and elderly persons.
Lhermitte peduncular hallucinosis: Purely visual hallucinations recognized as unreal, abnormal phenomena.
Lhermitte sign: Flexion of the neck in patients with multiple sclerosis produces electric shock-like sensations that extend down the spine and may shoot into the limbs
Lhermitte syndrome: A rare syndrome of ocular palsy with nystagmus and paralysis of adduction during attempted lateral deviation of the eyes
Lhermitte-Trelles syndrome' A syndrome characterized by lymphoblastic infiltration of the peripheral nervous system, associated with paralysis and amyotrophy