For 16 years, from 1878, Blanche Wittman was a patient in the infamous Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, diagnosed by the famous Dr Charcot as a hysteric. Putting Blanche on display in a cataleptic state, Charcot explained to audiences that he hoped to reveal, through her ‘a certain system, a secret code, which … could point the way to the meaning of life’. He was no quack (he was the first person to identify multiple sclerosis); Freud was his assistant for a time; and Blanche not only admired him but also, it appears, loved him, and the love was returned.
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