Jean Lhermitte

For the Navy officer, see Jean-Marthe-Adrien l'Hermite

Jacques Jean Lhermitte (/lerˈmiːt/) (20 January 1877 – 24 January 1959) was a French neurologist and neuropsychiatrist.

He was born in Mont-Saint-Pere, Aisne, son of Leon Augustin Lhermitte, a French realist painter. Following his early education at Saint-Etienne, he studied in Paris and graduated in medicine in 1907. He specialised in neurology and became Chef-de-clinique (resident) for nervous diseases in 1908, Chef de laboratoire in 1910, and professeur agrege for psychiatry 1922. He later became Medecin des Hopitaux at the "Hospice Paul Brousse", head of the foundation "Dejerine", and clinical director at the Salpetriere Hospital.

During World War I he studied spinal injuries and became interested in neuropsychiatry. This led to publications on visual hallucinations of the self. A deeply religious man, he explored the common territory between theology and medicine, and this led to interesting studies on demoniacal possession and stigmatisation.

Lhermitte was a noted clinical neurologist, and a number of medically relevant eponyms bear his name: