Charcot and the Mental Calculator Jacques Inaudi. Jean-Martin Charcot (1892): Procédés psychiques de fixation et de réviviscence des chiffres chez le calculateur Jacques Inaudi
Résumé
In 1892, Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893) was a member of the French Académie des Sciences (Academy of Sciences) and had the opportunity to examine a prodigious mental calculator named Jacques Inaudi (1867-1950). Charcot adopted the viewpoint of a neurologist and sought to develop a psycho-physiological explanation for the Inaudi case, presenting an extraordinary memory for numbers. Charcot’s official report was published in June 1892 and expressed the opinion of the members of the commission but not of himself alone. The manuscript found in Charcot’s archives and presented here is very informative. It exposes diverse elements already presented in the official report (Charcot, 1892) but it also expresses Charcot’s own opinion about Inaudi’s case and adds some new information about Charcot’s ideas about memory for digits and numbers.