Joseph Jules Dejerine

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870) Dejerine worked as a volunteer in a Geneva Hospital and in the spring of 1871 decided to pursue his medicine studies in Paris.

In 1888, Dejerine married Augusta Déjerine-Klumpke, his student, who had studied medicine in Paris; in 1887, she was the first woman named an interne des hôpitaux.

The centenary of his birth was commemorated in 1949 at the fourth International Neurological Congress in Paris, when Dejerine's pupil, André Thomas, gave a discourse on his mentor's life and achievements.

Dejerine was one of the pioneers in the study of localisation of function in the brain, having first shown that pure alexia may occur as the result of lesions of the supramarginal and angular gyri.

Like many eminent neurologists of his era, Dejerine became interested in psychology in the later stages of his career and he is remembered as a proponent of the view that the personality of the psychotherapist is crucial in any interaction with the patient.