Charcot's Women: Bodies of Knowledge at the Interface of Aging Studies and Women's Studies

ABSTRACT

Jean-Martin Charcot's Clinical Lectures on the Diseases of Old Age is recognized as a pioneering, nineteenth-century scientific text on old age. Less acknowledged in gerontology are the elderly women of Paris's Salpêtrière Hospital who were Charcot's research subjects. Looking at the feminist research on Charcot, hysteria, and the history of the Salpêtrière, and critically examining Charcot's text in light of this research, leads to the conclusion that the study of Charcot's women can strengthen the growing connection between aging studies and women's studies.