Marie "Blanche" Wittman (often spelled Wittmann; April 15, 1859 – 1913) was a French woman known as one of the hysteria patients of Jean-Martin Charcot.

[2]: 6 Wittman stayed with her mother and worked in a laundry from age 14 to 15; during that time she had "relations" with a jeweler named Louis.

[2]: 6  Eight days later she entered a hospital as a duty maid, where she began a relationship with a young man named Alphonse.

After a few months, they spent a week in the countryside; upon her return to Paris, she sought asylum in a convent on the Rue du Cherche-Midi [fr].

[4] Her attacks began seven days after admission and would last for up to several hours, during which she would make rapid motions, become rigid, and act out sexual scenes.

She would experience generalized stiffness with limb extension, finger flexion and tetanic contractions, downward deviation of the eyes, and foaming at the mouth during the epileptoid stage.

They were frequently attended by dancers, actresses (including Sarah Bernhardt), and other performers wishing to see the wide range of emotions that Wittman displayed during her attacks.

[4] Though popular, they were criticized for their circus-like showmanship and sexual innuendo; under hypnosis, Wittman was made to act out theatrics with comedic effect.

[3]: 127 In The Discovery of the Unconscious (1970), Henri Ellenberger claims that Wittman was also treated by Jules Janet at the Hôtel-Dieu, where an alternate personality emerged under hypnosis.

[7] A 2017 study of Wittman's symptoms concluded that she likely suffered from psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, though some elements like reported ovarian hypersensitivity may have been related to mass hysteria resulting from conditions at La Salpêtrière were also possible.

[5]: 69 [4][note 1] Wittman is depicted in André Brouillet's 1887 painting A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière, where she is used in a demonstration during one of Charcot's weekly lectures.

The novel takes considerable historical liberties: Wittman is portrayed in a sexual relationship with Charcot, and later becomes Marie Curie's assistant and confidante.

[10][11] However, a 2007 letter published in The Lancet criticized the novel for the "slandering of an unfortunate patient and two icons of science", including the invention of the relationship between Charcot and Wittman.