1 The foundation of clinical neurology in J.-M. Charcot. An analysis based on computational linguistics Liborio Dibattista Summary We set out here the results coming from the application of techniques of computational linguistics to scientific corpora of the nineteenth century. The aim of the application was to bring out the role played by the French neuro-pathologist J.-M. Charcot in the constitution of a special branch of scientific language: neurology. The analysis was carried out using a linguistic processor produced by LADL at the University of Paris VII (INTEX). It was applied to a vast corpus (about 400.000 words) of works that Charcot produced in the second half of the nineteenth century. The vocabulary in this corpus was compared to texts of Duchenne de Boulogne and Jules Dejerine, written a quarter of a century before and after Charcot’s work, respectively. The findings of the quantitative and qualitative lexicographical analysis of this comparison have been evaluated, and the technique assessed and recommended as providing a very effective tool for historians of science. Keywords: computational linguistics, J.-M.Charcot, history of neurology. INTRODUCTION Studies of the life and work of Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893) carried out over the last fifteen years 1 all see in him one of the figures mainly responsible for the constitution of clinical neurology as a specific area of research, in particular in French-speaking areas. The aim of this study is to analyse how far the work of the Paris doctor was decisive also in the creation of a terminology proper to the discipline itself, in the conviction that it was a crucial moment in the development of a new conceptualisation, and a decisive moment in the history of a science: «A science does not begin to exist, or cannot emerge, except to the extent it makes its own concepts exist and imposes them its own denominations. It has no other means to establish its own legitimacy than specifying and naming its object, that may be an order of phenomena, a new domain or a new way of relating between objects given [...] To name, i.e. to create a concept, is both the first and the definitive operation in a science» 2 The study of the appearance and 1 To cite just the more important, see: A. LELLOUCH, “Histoire De La Vieillesse Et De Ses Maladies (De L'antiquité Au Xixe Siècle. La Contribution De Jean Martin Charcot(1825-1893) Et Des Médecins Des Hospices Parisiens.” (Thèse de Doctorat, Ecole pratique des hautes études , Paris,1986), then published as A. LELLOUCH, Jean Martin Charcot Et Les Origines De La Gériatrie: Recherches Historiques Sur Le Fonds D'archives De La Salpêtrière, Paris, Payot, 1992. - J. GASSER, Aux Origines Du Cerveau Moderne : Localisations, Langage Et Mémoire Dans L'oeuvre De Charcot, Penser La Médecine, Paris, Fayard, 1995 , also originating in a doctoral thesis: J. GASSER, “Jean-Martin Charcot, 1823- 1825 Et Le Système Nerveux. Etude De La Motricité, Du Langage, De La Mémoire Et De L'hystérie À La Fin Du Xixe Siècle.” (Thèse de Doctorat à l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en sciences Sociales,Paris, 1990) - M. DI GIANDOMENICO, “Charcot Rivoluzionario a Metà,” in Le Rivoluzioni Nella Scienza Della Vita / Guido Cimino, Bernardino Fantini (Eds.), Firenze, Olschki, 1995,177-208 - C. G. GOETZ, M. BONDUELLE, and T. GELFAND, Charcot : Constructing Neurology, New York, Oxford University Press, 1995. - M. GAUCHET et al., Le Vrai Charcot: Les Chemins Imprévus De L'inconscient. Suivi De Deux Essais De Jacques Gasser Et Alain Chevrier, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1997 - P.-H. CASTEL, La Querelle De L'hystérie : La Formation Du Discours Psychopathologique En France (1881-1913), Bibliothèque Du Collège International De Philosophie, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1998. 2 BENVENISTE, Problème de linguistique générale,Gallimard, Paris, 1991; tr.it Problemi di linguistica generale, Cuneo, Il Saggiatore, 1994 2, 246-53, p.247