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Jean-Martin Charcotâs role in the 19th century study of music aphasia
Jean-Martin Charcot (1825â93) was a well-known French neurologist. Although he is widely recognized for his discovery of several neurological disorders and his research into aphasia, Charcotâs ideas about how the brain processes music are less well known. Charcot discussed the music abilities of several patients in the context of his âFriday Lessonsâ on aphasia, which took place at the SalpĂȘtriĂšre Hospital in Paris in 1883â84. In his most comprehensive discussion about music, Charcot described a professional trombone player who developed difficulty copying music notation and playing his instrument, thereby identifying a new isolated syndrome of music agraphia without aphasia. Because the description of this case was published only in Italian by one of his students, Domenico Miliotti, there has been considerable confusion and under-acknowledgement of Charcotâs ideas about music and the brain. In this paper, we describe Charcotâs ideas regarding music and place them within the historical context of the growing interest in the neurological underpinnings of music abilities that took place in the 1880s