Paul Delmas-Marsalet

Work and research

Paul Delmas-Marsalet was one of the French pioneers of clinical and experimental neuroscience research. He continued his research during his residency with Professor Leuret. He discovered the ‘Delmas-Marsalet laws’ concerning effective pressures in pneumothorax. He modified the devices in use at the time and developed a new artificial pneumothorax apparatus. and biopsychology, which were regarded at the time as reference works. It was the second such device designed in France, following the Lapipe-Rondepierre apparatus developed in 1940 by Dr Marcel Lapipe of Vaugirard Hospital and Dr Jacques Rondepierre of Ville-Evrad Psychiatric Hospital. The Delmas-Marsalet machine, the first to use direct current and characterised by its ease of use, was employed for decades.

In 1943, Paul Delmas-Marsalet published his first book, ‘Therapeutic Electroconvulsive Therapy and Dissolution-Reconstruction’, in which he theorised an explanatory model of the mechanism of action of ECT on psychiatric disorders. Inspired by the theories of Huglings Jackson, his hypothesis was based on a hierarchical model of neuropsychic functions, the architecture of which he posited to be disorganised in psychiatric disorders and reorganised under the influence of ECT.

Paul Delmas-Marsalet is described by his contemporaries as having an extraordinary personality. An inventor and worker who slept very little and wrote extensively, he was also a speaker who was committed to teaching. As part of his job as dean of the medical school, he was responsible for organising the annual review, during which one of his machines was subsequently displayed for years. Upon his departure from the university, he delivered a farewell lecture on 28 June 1969. With all his academic decorations on display, he was dressed in one of the few traditional academic gowns to have escaped destruction by the fires set off by students in the May 1968 revolution: a farewell lecture archetypical of an academic with a flamboyant personality who left a lasting impression on an entire generation of students and doctors in Bordeaux.