The apprenticeship of Philippe Pinel: a new document, "observations of Citizen Pussin on the insane"

Abstract

Philippe Pinel is usually pictured in histories of psychiatry and of medicine as the man who first liberated the insane from their chains. The document presented here, discovered in 1978 in the Archives nationales in Paris, reveals the crucial role of Jean-Baptiste Pussin, the "governor" of mental patients at Bicêtre. It was Pussin who initiated Pinel to psychological methods (the famous traitement moral) in dealing with hospitalized mental patients. Further, in 1797, Pussin first replaced chains with straitjackets. Pinel later obtained Pussin's transfer to the Salpêtrière to help him reorganize that huge hospital.