Paul Briquet
Paul Briquet or Pierre Briquet (12 January 1796 – 25 January 1881) was a French physician and psychologist who advanced the reasoned treatment of disturbed people said to be hysterics. Briquet became a medical doctor in 1824, a professor in 1827. In 1836 he operated at the Cochin hospital and in 1846 at La Charité hospital. In 1853 he described the preparation and use of quinine. He published "Traité clinique et thérapeutique de l’Hystérie" in 1859, and the following year he was admitted to the Academie de Medecine. A type of personality disorder called "Briquet’s syndrome" is classified  as somatic symptom disorder. He first described this in 1859. "Although many of his theoretical concepts, basic scientific knowledge and data processing techniques were primitive by our standards, his approach, his emphasis on demonstrable facts, and his many well-substantiated conclusions mark his "Treatise on Hysteria" as an avant-garde work relevant even today" Briquet was a proponent of male hysteria in his "Treatise". He cites Louyer-Villermay, M. Dubois, M. Landouzy, and M. Monneret as putting to rest the doubt over male hysteria. He wrote, "Regardless of the denials, men may suffer from hysteria, and the cases that prove  it are not rare, and it is only possible to prevent it by acknowledging that." As a mental condition, hysteria is not due to uterine influence: "Hysteria may occur in men, who have no uterus, in non-menstruating young women whose uterus is still in a rudimentary state and where it remains without influence, and in old women where it no longer influences." Briquet describes circumstances where simultaneously the senses are excited, and efforts are made to conceal the excitation, as precursors to hysteria. In Mark Micale’s reading of Briquet’s "Treatise", the introductory section on male hysteria is  followed by prejudice against the male victims of the disorder. Apart from the gender factor, Briquet studied the epidemiology of hysteria through 430 patients that he attended over a decade of clinical work. Micale describes the anticipation of affective neuroscience: In his 2004 history of mental illness, Theodore Millon noted Briquet's advances: