16

Apr

2020

Georges Saint-Paul

(April 17, 1870 in Montigny-lès-Metz - April 7, 1937 in Genillé) is a French military doctor and researcher. General practitioner, he is the author of a work that is both literary and scientific under the pseudonyms of: G. Espé de Metz and Dr Laupts.


BIOGRAPHY

Georges Saint-Paul was born in Montigny-lès-Metz, just before the annexation of Lorraine by the German Empire. His parents opt for French nationality. Georges Saint-Paul follows his studies in France and supports a doctorate in 1892. Doctor-major in Algeria, then in Tunisia, he then returns to France, to Tours, then to Nancy. In 1926, he was appointed director of the Armed Forces Health Service, in Nancy, with the rank of general.

During his career, he established an epistolary relationship with the German researcher Paul Näcke, and published several scientific works, in particular on what is initially called "inversion" then on what he will qualify himself. even "homosexuality", under the pseudonym of Dr. Laupts. In 1908, he distanced himself from Näcke about his thesis on the "degeneration of France", through the journal Archives de l'anthropologie criminelle directed by Alexandre Lacassagne.

He also published more literary, dramatic or poetic works, under the pseudonym of G. Espé de Metz. Under the same alias he contributed to the discussion of colonialism in the press, especially around Algeria. Defining himself willingly as an agitator of ideas, we owe him several neologisms, including the term "endophasia", which he associated with introspection1.

In 1931, he created the Association of Geneva places, to promote areas intended to accommodate civilians in the event of armed conflict, anticipating the principles of the Geneva conventions of 1949.

Georges Saint-Paul died on April 7, 1937, at the Château de Rassay, near Genillé in Indre-et-Loire.


HIS WORKS

Georges Saint-Paul, at the instigation of Lacassagne, carried out work on interior language. Defender of a scientific psychology, he intended to democratize the method of introspection by applying it to a large sample of individuals. His program is based on what he calls "cerebrology", or science of the brain, a scientific-medical method allowing to pass from individual psychology to a form of general psychology.


Article based on Wikipedia article