DUCHENNE, GUILLAUME. - French physician, known in medical literature as D. de Boulogne, b. at Boulogne sur Mer on 17 Sept. 1806, d. at Paris on 17 Sept. 1875.
An isolated, tenacious, persevering worker, this physician to the fishermen of Boulogne, continuing his first experiments in Paris (where he met Charcot), was the first to observe the localized effects of the faradic current (localized electrization), thereby creating electrodiagnosis and electrotherapy. As a clinician, he was the first to describe progressive locomotor ataxia and certain forms of progressive nuclear atrophy, introducing the concept of functional incapacity of muscles without paralysis, due solely to atrophy. D. was a religious man and left evidence of his convictions in his writings.