AT THE TIME of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, Philippe Pinel (1745-1826) became physician of the infirmaries at Bicêtre (1793-1795), physician-in-chief at the Salpêtrière Hospice (1795-1826), professor at the Paris Health School, and personal physician to Napoleon. A clinician and researcher, his best-known works are Philosophic Nosography (6 editions; 1798-1818), Treatise on Insanity (2 editions; 1800 and 1809), and Clinical Medicine (1802, 1804, and 1815). He distinguished 4 broad groups of mental disorders: melancholy, mania, dementia, and mental retardation. Pinel showed great compassion toward his patients and sought to integrate mental illnesses into medicine. His humane approach led to later efforts on behalf of the rights of citizens with mental illness, those involuntarily confined, and those claiming innocence of crimes by reason of insanity, all issues involving the Rights of Man. He brought an empirical . . . [Full Text of this Article]