12:15 1:15 pm - Discussion:  What do you Know About Dr. Babinski?
On-Site at the Lodge, Includes Lunch - Please register by clicking here  (attendance is limited)

Acknowledgement of Support
The San Francisco Neurological Society acknowledges SpineOne for support of this program. This is a non-CME accredited activity.

Oscar Abeliuk, MD, Immediate Past President San Francisco Neurological Society; Former President Bay Area History of Medicine Club, Affiliated with UCSF (Department of History of Medicine & Anthropology)

The "Babinski sign" is typically one of the first neurological tests performed by a specialist or primary care physician to determine an injury to the pyramidal tract.  However, Joseph Babinski is more than just the Babinski sign.  He was an early contributor to the field of tendinous reflexes, cerebellar and vestibular semiology, hysteria and pithiatism, localization of the spinal cord compressions and was a very important contributor to the birth of French neurosurgery.   

Two French physicians, Jacques Philippon and Jacques Poirier, have just documented in detail Joseph Babiniski's contributions to neurology and other medical fields with a very significant and authoritative biography of him, 2008.  This one hour lecture is mostly based in this recently published work as well as a careful review of documents and publications that relate to his life and scientific achievements.  I will chronicle his families immigration from Poland to France, his tutelage and early career under great teachers such as Jean-Martin Charcot at the hospital de la Salpetriere in Paris.  I will discuss his methods and observations during his twenty-seven years as a department head at la Pitie Hospital, in Paris, as well as his unique relation with brother Henry, a well-known gastronome, who published under the pseudonym of Ali-Bab, a quite famous book, Gastronomie pratique (1907) with many new editions and even in English.  (This justifies having lunch while we will talk about it).   

As was said at the occasion of Babinski's century birthday celebration, "if Babinski seems sometimes forgotten, this is only an illusion; his work is not a museum piece in the history of medicine, but reborn every day during a neurological exam performed somewhere in the world." 

Oscar Abeliuk, MD, Immediate Past President San Francisco Neurological Society

Former President Bay Area History of Medicine Club, Affiliated with UCSF (Department of History of Medicine and Anthropology)