André Brouillet, French
“If I May Take the Liberty of Finishing Her Sentence, I Believe What Miss Perkins Was in the Midst of Telling You Gentlemen Is That She Is a Narcoleptic,” 1887
Oil on canvas
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/// French neurologist, Doctor Charcot,
is shown here putting on a big show.
Marie Wittman’s the “star.”
Her behavior’s bizarre;
she’s hysterical. (Charcot says so.)
/// Other evidence claimed: Epileptic.
Or hypnosis he used, (said a sceptic),
suggested suggestion.
There’s also the question,
whether Wittman had supped something septic.*
/// Some said she could make these symptoms halt.
Others swore none of this was her fault.
As a teen she found work
with an old sexist jerk
who subjected Marie to assault.
/// While Marie up in front displays “fainting,”
in the left background of this same painting
is an image which shows
the “hysterical pose,”
an idea used for shaming and tainting.
/// Don’t assume that Charcot was a quack,
(though at times he was under attack).
His accomplishments were
world-class, all would concur.
Back then Jean-Martin led the whole pack.
/// When Charcot died, Marie changed vocation,
working in a lab with radiation.
She suffered great harm,
having poisoned each arm,
and then losing both to amputation.
/// (After research and reading about
Marie’s tragic life, I had no doubt
that I wanted to tell
of her woeful farewell
to arms; I couldn’t leave that part out).
*Thanks to Joe Boyle for suggesting the word “septic.”
/// A sex worker with medical clients,
she was paid for her cheerful compliance.
Sold her body while living;
after death started giving.
She’d donated her body to science.