[Pierre and François Mauriac, a privileged friendship between brothers].

Pierre and François have been the key figures of the Mauriac five children. Pierre introduced his hospital service in Bordeaux to bio-clinic and was a well-known professor before he became the dean of the Faculty from 1936 to 1945. As hero during the Great War he remained loyal to the "victor of the battle of Verdun" while his brother Frangois became a fervent 'Gaullist', "each of them climbing the same mountain along another side" according to François Mauriac in 1966.

[Montesquieu visually impaired, then blind (January 1689- February 1755)].

The correspondence of Montesquieu published by the Oxford Foundation informs about visual disorders of the founder of the socio-political science. The examination of his bust's face done by J.B.

[Saint Anthony's Fire or gangrenous ergotism and its medieval iconography].

The frequent epidemics of ergotism were called Holy Fire or st-Antony's Fire in the Middle Ages, because of the burning sensations resulting in gangrene of limbs. It was caused by eating rye bread contaminated with the fungus Claviceps purpurea. The hospitable Order of st-Antony was founded near Vienne in France with 300 establishements in Europe until 1777.

[Antony's fire (gangrenous ergotism) and medieval iconography].

Ergotism was known as Holy Fire or St Antony's Fire in the Middle Ages, because of the burning sensations and limb gangrene it entailed. It was a frequent disorder, caused by eating rye flour contaminated by the fungus Claviceps purpurea. The Hospitable Order of St Antony was founded near Vienne in France, and counted 400 establishments in Europe by 1777.

[Genetic obesity in childhood].

Polygenic obesity is increasingly frequent in childhood. Rare monogenic, non syndromic forms are of special physiopathological interest. They are due to recessive or dominant leptinlreceptor deficits, pro-opiomelanocortin deficit, or 4-melanocortin deficit.

Art and the history of medicine. The dwarf pointed by Mantegna of Montua and the Morgante of Florence.

This short article concerns two images which relate art and the history of medicine. The first is a fresco by Andrea Mantegna, from the period 1465-1474, when he was at the Gonzaga court of Ludovic III. This painting includes a female dwarf.

[Neurosciences in Bordeaux].

The Bordeaux Neuroscience Institute brings together all the disciplines that constitute the clinical and experimental neurosciences. Outside of the Paris region, the Institute represents the largest community of researchers working on the nervous system. The aim of this brief historical piece is to describe how neuroscientists in Bordeaux are the heirs to a long neuropsychiatric tradition established by pioneers of national and international renown.

[Montesquieu, sciences and medicine in Europe].

Montesquieu is the first one of his century to be fascinated by sciences, chiefly by sciences of life. He created a prize of plysics and anatomy, used the microscope and even made experiments. Despite his amblyopia and his cataract which made him blind, he was in contact with the intellectual and scientific elite of his time.

[Autographs of physicians and famous scholars].

The Archives of the Society of Medicine of Bordeaux include the period of two centuries from 1796 to 1995 and many autographs and letters of medical doctors and famous scholars can be found in them such as Claude Bernard, Laennec or Pasteur. All these autographs or letters are interesting as they bear witness to the action of them who made the real scientific medicine.

X-linked dominant chondrodysplasia with platyspondyly, distinctive brachydactyly, hydrocephaly, and microphthalmia.

We describe a family with an X-linked dominant chondrodysplasia. Four males and six females were affected through four generations. Identification of skeletal abnormalities and hydrocephaly during the pregnancy of three male fetuses led to termination of the pregnancies.

[Turner syndrome and mosaicism].

Turner's syndrome is a gonadosomatic dysgenesis of female phenotype due to a more or less complete monosomy of one of the X chromosomes leading to a haploinsufficiency of the development genes situated at the level of the pseudoautosomal region of the gonosomes. Further experience of the karyotype showed a preponderance of mosaics and considerable variability of Turner's phenotype in proportion to the number of 45, X cells. The rare cases of monozygotism discordant with variable tissular distribution mosaics show that the phenotypic expression is a genic dosage effect.