Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (de Boulogne) (September 17, 1806 - September 15, 1875 )

Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (de Boulogne) 

(September 17, 1806 - September 15, 1875 )  

Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (de Boulogne) (born September 17, 1806 in Boulogne-sur-Mer; died September 15, 1875 in Paris) was a French neurologist who revived Galvani's research and greatly advanced the science of muscular electrophysiology(electromyography). The era of modern neurology progressed from Duchenne's understanding of the conductivity of neural pathways, his revelations of the effect of lesions on these structures and his introduction of muscle biopsy. Duchenne's electrical experiments on the facial musculature exerted an enormous influence through Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

The biographer Joseph Collins wrote of Duchenne that he found neurology, "a sprawling infant of unknown parentage which he succored to a lusty youth" and although it is Jean-Martin Charcot who is now called the father of modern neurology, Charcot owed much to Duchennne, acknowledging him as, "mon maître." He was the first to practise muscle biopsy, the harvesting of living tissue samples with an invention he called, "l'emporte-pièce" (Duchenne's trocar). His book, Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine was the first neurophysiology text on emotion and established a landmark in the history of clinical medical photography. However, Duchenne's greatest contributions were made in the myopathies that now bear his name, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne-Aran spinal muscular atrophy and Duchenne-Erb paralysis.

Duchenne's contemporaries appended "de Boulogne" to his name to avoid confusion with the like-sounding name of Edouard Adolphe Duchesne (1804–1869), a popular society physician.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Benjamin_Amand_Duchenne