Maurice Villaret

Maurice Villaret (December 7, 1877 - 1946) was a French neurologist who was born in Paris. He received his doctorate from the University of Paris in 1906, and for much of his career he was a professor at the university hospitals of Necker and Broussais in Paris.

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Together with his mentor Augustin Nicolas Gilbert (1858-1927), Villaret did extensive research regarding the physiology of the portal venous system, and had special interest concerning the causes of portal hypertension. He also undertook several pathological studies of cirrhosis.

He is remembered for his studies and experiments involving precision localization of vascular lesions of the brain, and also his attempts to reproduce the symptoms in laboratory animals. In 1917 he described what was to become known as Villaret's syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by an ipsilateral paralysis of cranial nerves numbers IX ,X, XI, XII, and sometimes cranial nerve number VII, and it can also involve the cervical ganglia of the sympathetic trunk. The paralysis is caused by a lesion in the posterior retroparotid space.

Bibliography

• Le syndrome nerveux de l’espace rétro-parotidien postérieur. Revue neurologique, Paris, 1916, 23, part 1: 188-190.
• Contribution à l’étude du syndrome d’hypertension partiale. Paris, 1906.

References

• Who Named It?; Maurice Villaret