Marie, Pierre

▪ French neurologist

born Sept. 9, 1853, Paris

died April 13, 1940, Paris

      French neurologist whose discovery that growth disorders are caused by pituitary disease contributed to the modern science of endocrinology.

      A student of the neurologist Jean Charcot at the Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris (1885), Marie published the first description of acromegaly (1886), a condition characterized by overgrowth of bone tissue such as that of the nose, jaws, fingers, and toes, and traced the disease to a tumour of the pituitary gland, at the base of the brain.

      He first described pulmonary osteoarthropathy (1890; inflammation of the bones and joints of the four limbs, often secondary to chronic conditions of the lungs and heart); hereditary cerebellar ataxia, also known as Marie's ataxia (1893; a disease in young adults characterized by a failure of muscular coordination caused by an atrophy of the cerebellum); and (with Charcot) a type of progressive muscular atrophy known as the “Charcot–Marie type.” He served as professor of neurology at the University of Paris from 1907 to 1925.

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