J.-M. Charcot and simulated neurologic disease: attitudes and diagnostic strategies

Abstract

Background: Neurologists have long wrestled with the diagnosis of elaborated or feigned disease. Studies have not focused on early techniques utilized to diagnose malingering.

Objective: To analyze cases of purposeful neurologic malingering among patients treated by the 19th century neurologist J.-M. Charcot, describe his attitudes, and study his methods to separate malingering from primary neurologic diseases.

Methods: A study was conducted of Charcot's printed and original documents from the Bibliothèque Charcot, Paris, and added documents on American neurology.

Results: Charcot recognized that purposeful simulation occurred in isolation as well as in established neurologic disorders. Charcot was strict with subjects motivated by greed or spite, but showed forbearance and wonder in those who created illness as "art for art's sake." Charcot developed diagnostic equipment that measured inspiratory depth and muscle activity as a strategy to identify malingerers. His approach strikingly contrasted with contemporary military medical treatises on malingering and S.W. Mitchell's civilian neurologic approaches that unmasked patients through more aggressive strategies.

Conclusion: Charcot provided an academically professional approach to the assessment of neurologic malingering, with a stern, often patronizing attitude, but without categorical condemnation. His diagnostic techniques are echoed by contemporary approaches and emphasized an attention to enhanced and inconsistent patterns of behaviors by malingerers.