PHILIPPE PINEL was born in April 20th 1745, in the château of Rascas. The château was a real estate of his grandparents, near Saint-André D’Alayrac, from which jurisdiction he was registered. Pinel belonged to a medical family who lived in Saint-Paul-Cap-de Joux. His father, uncle and grandfather were surgeons, as well as his brothers Charles and Pierre-Louis.

When Pinel was 12 years old he lost his mother Elisabeth Dupuy. His father, also called Philippe Pinel, noticing the children’s avidity for studying, decided that the abbot Gorse should carry on the education of his children, which was previously done by his wife. When Philippe brilliantly concluded his Latin studies, he went to the Lavour School, where he spent 4 years. Since he was called the “little genius”, many bourgeois were interested in sponsoring his education. Pinel received a good salary to teach two children of a rich man. Therefore, he had time and money to proceed his studies. After 4 years in Lavour he resigned from the religious life, going back to Toulouse, where he continued his studies.

On July 1767, Pinel enrolled in the Faculty of Theology in Toulouse, but in April 1770, he changed to the Faculty of Medicine, from which he received with brilliancy the M.D. on December 2nd 1773. He was greatly influenced by the revolutionaries Voltaire and Jean -Jacques Rousseau. In 1774, he went to Monpellier where he frequented for 4 years the medical school and hospitals. Simultaneously with his medical training, Pinel studied mathematics.

In 1778, he went to Paris with an English student, from whom he learned the perfect knowledge of the English language. In Paris, he made many friends among scientists and writers. In 1792, Pinel became the editor of the Gazette de Santé, in which he published a number of articles chiefly concerned with hygiene and mental disorders.

From 1783 to 1788, Pinel devoted his time to the study of mental illness. The decision around the subject was made after a friend became mad and ran into the countryside, where he was tragically eaten by wolves. He turned to study works from Hippocrates, Celso, Galien, Alexandre de Trailes and Aretée de Cappadoce.

In 1792, he married Jeanne Vincent in Paris. In 1793, they bought a country house in Tourfon, to spend the weekends. Philippe took care of flowers and medicinal plants.
On September 11th 1793, Pinel became the chief physician of Bicêtre Hospital, the Paris asylum for the 200 hundred incurable insane men. There, he found inhuman conditions, with patients being chained to the walls, many of whom had been restrained for 30 to 40 years, treated like beasts.

With difficulty Pinel received an authorization from the Revolutionary Government, “La Terreur”, to remove the chains. At the beginning, he freed only 12 patients, with no negative consequences. The “moral treatment” was the basis of the technique used and it was extremely successful. In this hard and historical revolution, Pinel had the great and very precious help of the loyal nurse Pussin.

On May 13th 1795, Dr. Pinel became chief physician of the Hospice de La Salpêtrière, a post that he retained for the rest of his life. In this asylum, there were 600 hundred insane and aggressive women. With the female insane, Pinel used the same treatment he had used with the men at the Bicêtre. So, the therapeutic measures were soon followed all over the world.

There are nearly eighty of Pinel’s printed works, the main being: Nosographie philosophique (1798), translated all over the European countries and the Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation ou manie (1801/1809) republished a few decades ago. The Nosographie has more than 6 editions.

Dr. Pinel was a humanist. He dedicated his whole life to minimize the suffering of all patients, not only the mental insane.

Some of his activities:

- Personal-physician of Imperator and King Napoléon Bonaparte, of Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI;
- Professor of Faculté de Médecine de Paris;
- Member of l’Académie des Sciences and Médecine of Paris ;
- Director of Bicêtre Hospital;
- Director of La Salpêtrière Hospital;
- Seminarist for 4 years;
- Doctor in Lettres;
- Mathematics;
- Master in Arts;
- Physicist;
- Zoologist;
- Theologian;
- Philosopher;
- Latinist;
- Naturalist;
- Translator;
- Writer;
- Journalist;
- Poet;
- Psychologist;
- Hygienist;
- Psychiatrist;
- Clinic;
- Legist ;

His dearest disciple and follower was Dr. Jean-Étienne-Dominique –Esquirol (1772-1840).

Dr. Philippe Pinel died in October 25th 1826, in Paris, victim of pneumonia. He left 2 children: Scipion, also psychiatrist and Charles, lawyer and graduated in Natural Sciences.

The last son came to Brazil in 1829 and left numerous descendents, from his marriage to the swiss Marie-Cathérine Rimes, in Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro.

(1745 - 1826)

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