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Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
French physician, born April 24, 1775, Oraison, Provence; died July 5, 1838, Paris.
Associated eponyms:
Eustachian catheter
A catheter devised by Jean Marie Gaspard Itard, French physician, 1774-1838.
Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome
A rare psychoneurological disorder with onset in childhood, usually at the age of 7 to 10 years, characterised by echolalia, pallilalia and coprolalia, a want for touch, and stottering.
Itard's catheter
Eustachian catheter.
Itard-Cholewa symptom
Numbness of the tympanic membrane in otosclerosis.
Biography:
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard entered his medical career in a somewhat unusual way. After having completed a relevant education he got a position at a bank. However, as he had to leave this comfortable position to join the army, he presented himself as a physician and was thus employed as an assistant physician to a military hospital in Soliers. Thanks to his brilliance, hard work and his quickly aroused enthusiasm he was able to acquire the knowledge necessary to make him a skilled operator.
Back in Paris Itard remained faithful to his new profession and held positions at various hospitals. In 1786 he was appointed Chirurgien aide-major at Val de Grâce in Paris and from 1789 physician at the Institute for Deaf Mutes. From this time on he concerned himself with the hearing organ and its diseases, investigations that was to spread his name all over Europe.
Otology owes to him the invention and improvement of several surgical instruments and techniques, as well as the design of hearing aids for people with impaired hearing. Among his pioneering achievements were the invention of the Eustachian catheter (Itard's catheter)
Besides otology he also took an interest in other medical problems; we thus have works on stuttering, dropsy, etc. Itard also proved his literary talent as editor of several medical journals. His most important work on otology appeared in Paris in 1821. It contains the results of his scientific research based on more than 172 detailed case stories.
His reputation suffered somewhat, however, because he was not able to teach a retarded boy, whom he had taken on, to speech. This boy, literary known as the «Sauvage de l’Aveyron», he picked up naked from the street, but was unable to give him the ability to speak.
In his will he left the Paris institute for the deaf and mute a substantial fortune - 160.000 francs, and instituted a prize which was to be awarded every three years at the Academy of Medicine for the best work in practical medicine or therapy.
Itard was from 1816 co-editor of the Journal universel des sciences médicales, Paris, from 1822 of the Revue médical and from 1832 of the Dictionnaire de médecine ou répertoire générale des sciences médicales sous le rapport théorique et pratique.
Bibliography:
- De l’éducation d’un homme sauvage, ou des premier développements physiques et moraux du jeune sauvage de l’Aveyron.
Paris, Goujon fils, An X (1801).
English translation, London, 1802.
Second and less optimistic report:
- Rapport . . . sur les nouveaux d´developpements et de l’état actuel du sauvage de l’Aveyron. Paris, 1807.
- Traité des maladies d'oreille et de l'audition.
2 volumes. Paris, Méquignon Marvis, 1821.
This is the first modern textbook devoted exclusively to diseases of the ear.
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