Gilbert Ballet

He studied medicine in Limoges and Paris, and subsequently became Chef de clinique under Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893) at the Salpêtrière.

[1] In 1909 Ballet was elected president of the Société française d'histoire de la médecine,[2] and in 1912 became a member of the Académie des sciences.

Ballet is remembered for his 1903 publication of Traité de pathologie mentale, which remained a principal reference book on psychiatry for nearly fifty years in France.

In 1911 Ballet described a disorder he called psychose hallucinatoire chronique, being defined as chronic delirium that consists primarily of hallucinations.

[3][4] Among his other works were a 1888 publication on inner speech in aphasia, Le Langage Interieur et les Diverses Formes de l'Aphasie,[5] an 1897 treatise on hypochondria and paranoia titled Psychoses et affections nerveuses,[6] and an historical biography on philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg ("Swedenborg; histoire d'un visionnaire aux XVIIIe siècle").