Henri-Étienne Beaunis

Henri-Étienne Beaunis (2 August 1830, Amboise – 20 July 1921, Le Cannet) was a French physiologist and psychologist. He defended the thesis of the Nancy School in the field of hypnosis. He is known for his works on anatomy, physiology, psychology and hypnosis.

Henri-Étienne Beaunis is born in Amboise in 1830. The name on his birth certificate is Henry-Étienne Beaunis, but most of his publications were made under the name of Henri-Étienne Beaunis. His mother, who was married to a government employee, had to leave Rouen when the city became threatened by the July revolution. When his mother returned to his father, she left Beaunis in Touraine under the care of his grandmother. When he was very young, he started to be interested to reading and arts. He had great successes at school and obtained successively the Baccalauréat ès lettres (1848) and the Baccalauréat ès sciences physiques (1849).

He studied in Rouen until he began his medical specialisation in Paris. He obtained his medical doctoral degree in Montpellier in 1856. His thesis was focused on habits and was published under the name of De l'habitude en général. He presented his vision of habits and pleaded for people to see habits as ways of improving ourselves, and not as repetitive acts that allows us to please ourselves in rest and happiness. His father was not an enthusiast for the arts and encouraged him to pursue the path of medicine. Henri-Étienne Beaunis chose medicine and enlisted himself in the French army. He served in Algeria many times and came back to France with the title of médecin-major de deuxième classe in 1860. His work Anatomie générale et physiologie du système lymphatique was presented as a thesis for his aggrégation de médecine in anatomical and physiological sciences. This was an obligatory step in France to become a professor. He then became professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Strasbourg.

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