Jules Séglas

Jules Séglas (May 31, 1856 - 1939) was a French psychiatrist who practiced medicine at the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière Hospitals in Paris. Early in his career he was an assistant to famed neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893). Séglas' ideas and theories influenced a number of psychiatrists, including Henri Ey (1900-1977) and Jacques Lacan (1901-1981). In 1908 he became president of the Societe Medico-Psychologique.

Séglas made important contributions in the field of psychopathology concerning delusions, hallucinations and "pseudohallucinations", including a detailed nosology of these phenomena. He did extensive research involving language and its relationship to mental illness. Here he described linguistic traits such as logorrhea, embolalia, near-mutism, automatic speech, alexia, agraphia, et al; and how these behaviors take shape and interact in various psychiatric disorders.

Selected writings

 * L’hallucination dans ses rapports avec la fonction du langage, Progrès médical, 1888.
 * Des Troubles du langage chez les Aliénés, Rueff Editeurs, Paris, 1892.
 * Leçons cliniques sur les maladies mentales et nerveuses (Salpêtrière (1887-94), Asselin et Houzeau, Paris, 1895
 * Le délire de négations, in Du délire des négations aux idées d'énormité, Jules Cotard & autres, L'Harmattan.

Reference
Jules Seglas
 * History of Psychiatry; Jules Séglas