author
J. (Joseph) Grasset
1849–1918
A French physician and neurologist from Montpellier, he wrote widely on the mind, nervous disorders, and the strange borderlands between medicine and psychology. His work reflects a moment when modern neurology was taking shape while older questions about consciousness still felt wide open.
1 Audiobook
L'idée médicale dans les romans de Paul Bourget
by J. (Joseph) Grasset
About the author
Born in Montpellier on March 18, 1849, Joseph Grasset earned his medical degree there in 1873 and spent his career closely tied to the city and its medical faculty. He became professor of therapeutics in 1881, later held the chair of clinical medicine, and in 1909 was appointed to general pathology.
Grasset is remembered chiefly as a neurologist and internist. He wrote on disorders of the nervous system and on clinical medicine more broadly, helping build the medical study of the brain and mind in late nineteenth-century France.
He also became known for investigating hypnosis, suggestion, and psychical phenomena. That unusual mix of rigorous medicine and curiosity about the limits of consciousness gives his books a distinctive character even now. He died in Montpellier on July 7, 1918.