Jules Froment

Jules Froment (1878-1946) was a French neurologist who born in Lyon. He earned his doctorate in 1906 with a thesis on heart diseases associated with thyrotoxicosis. For much of his career he was a professor in Lyon.

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Froment is remembered for his work with diseases of the nerves. During World War I he was stationed in Rennes where he treated soldiers with nerve disorders. After the war he co-wrote an important work with Joseph Babiński (1857-1932) concerning the aetiology of phenomena such as "shell shock" and "combat hysteria". The treatise was called Hystérie, pithiatisme et troubles nerveux d'ordre réflexe en neurologie de guerre, and was considered controversial at the time. Also with Babiński, he is credited with describing a disease characterized by a combination of vasomotor disorders, muscular atrophy and tissue damage. This disease is now known as Babinski-Froment syndrome.

Froment is credited with devising a series of tests for nerve dysfunction, including a simple way to test ulnar nerve weakness; if a patient holds a sheet of paper between thumb and index finger and the thumb flexes, it is an indication of ulnar nerve palsy. This test is now used to assess flexor pollicis brevis.

Written works

• La préhension dans les paralysies du nerf cubital et le signe du pouce; La presse médicale, Paris, 1915, 23: 409.
• Heredodegenerations retinienne et spino-cerebeleuse; variantes ophtalmoscopiques et neurologique présentés par trois generations successive J Med Lyon, 1937: 153-163.
• Troubles nerveux d’ordre reflexe. In their: Hysterie, pithiatisme et troubles nerveux d’ordre reflexe. J. Babinbski, J. Froment: Paris, Masson, 1917.

See also

• Froment's sign