Esprit Blanche

Esprit Sylvestre Blanche (15 May 1796, Rouen – 8 November 1852, Paris) was a French psychiatrist. Biography His father, Antoine Louis Blanche (1753-1816), was a chief surgeon of the military hospitals of Rouen. After finishing a doctorate of medical studies in 1819 at the Paris School of Medicine, he devoted his life to the study of mental health. He founded a nursing home on the heights of Montmartre, where he took up again principles of a treatment developed by Philippe Pinel, but had his patients keep in touch with a new family instead of isolating them from others. Doctor Blanche counted Nerval and Gounod among his many patients. In 1826, he moved his Montmartre institution to the Hotel of Lamballe (l’Hôtel de Lamballe) in Passy; the building and its grounds belonged to the Princess of Lamballe.