Gilbert Ballet

Who was Gilbert Ballet?

Gilbert Ballet was a French psychiatrist, neurologist and historian who was a native of Ambazac in the department of Haute-Vienne.

He studied medicine in Limoges and Paris, and subsequently became Chef de clinique under Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière. In 1900 he became a professor of psychiatry, and in 1904 established the department of psychiatry at Hôtel-Dieu de Paris. In 1909 he attained the chair of clinical psychiatry and brain disorders at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne.

In 1909 Ballet was elected president of the Société française d'histoire de la médecine, and in 1912 became a member of the Académie des sciences.

Ballet is remembered for his 1903 publication of Traité de pathologie mentale, which remained a principal reference book on psychiatry for nearly fifty years in France. In 1911 Ballet described a disorder he called psychose hallucinatoire chronique, being defined as chronic delirium that consists primarily of hallucinations, and largely affects older persons. In French psychiatry, "hallucinatory chronic psychosis" was to become classified as a distinct entity, separate from other self-delusional disorders.

Among his other works were an 1897 treatise on hypochondria and paranoia titled Psychoses et affections nerveuses, and an historical biography on philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg.