Étienne Eugène Azam

Étienne Eugène Azam, whose full name was Charles-Marie-Étienne-Eugène Azam, was a French surgeon from Bordeaux, born on 28 May 1822 and dead on 16 December 1899. Although he practised surgery, he is chiefly remembered for his work in psychology. Over a number of years he followed a female patient he called Félida X, who seemed to move between two states, one serious and sad and one merry and generous, each apparently unaware of the other. Azam described her as hysterical, named the condition the doubling of the personality, and published three reports on the case. It is one of the earliest documented descriptions of what was later called multiple personality disorder, and it drew wide attention in the medical community. He later gathered his observations in a book on hypnotism, double consciousness and alterations of personality, with a preface by Jean-Martin Charcot.