How a French Neurosurgeon Defeated the Nazis

The name Jean Talairach is probably not familiar to many people – unless you have studied medicine (with special emphasis on specializations in psychiatry and neurosurgery) or psychology. However, we need to get to know this French scientist better for several very important reasons.

Jean Talairach (1911-2007) was an important neurosurgeon and the first “cartographer” of the human brain. In 1967, together with his colleague Gabor Szikl, he created a standardized network – a system of coordinates for the field of neurosurgery. This system will later become known as Talairach coordinates or Talairach space, and it represents a map by which certain, separate brain structures can be located regardless of individual differences. Talairach and Szikla will publish the “brain map” in 1967 in the famous Talairach atlas . Today there is also software developed by Jack Lancaster and Peter Fox from the Research Imaging Institute of the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio ( UTHSCSA ) , withmilitary-grade digital version of this atlas and tool.

The grid, i.e. the coordinates of this three-dimensional system, are based on the observation that the larger the brain, the greater the distances between brain structures. The commissura anterior and commissura posterior are taken as the frame points of the system.

 

This network enables easier identification of certain brain structures on images obtained by MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or PET (positron emission tomography) techniques. In fact, it is a tool without which the study of the human brain is not possible, as well as any intervention on this sensitive structure.

However, the brain of Jean Talairach himself is a fascinating story – it is a brain that housed a great mind, capable of many things.

 

Jean’s father was a pianist, and Jean himself learned to play the cello to a professional level. However, instead of becoming a professional musician, he will choose another path: young Jean was fascinated by the world of mathematics, geometry and architecture. He was particularly interested in the halls of the medical school in Montpellier. It should be said that this school is actually one of the oldest medical schools in the world – it dates back to the Middle Ages. It is believed that the first lectures were held as early as 1000 and were influenced by translations of the works of Avicenna and Maimonides. The architecture and geometry of this institution attracted the young Talairach so much that the time spent in and around these buildings resulted in him falling in love with medicine.

However, about thirty years before he and Szikla made the mentioned atlas of the brain, Talairach made something else, and again, so similar: a map of the underground passages and catacombs of Paris. This map will become one of the most important things in the French Resistance and will serve as a guide during the liberation of Paris.

 

A little before the war, in 1938, while working at the Sainte Anne hospital, Talairach and his colleague René Suttel, just like in the story, discovered a secret passage behind a closed door. The passage led to the hidden catacombs beneath the city, a whole labyrinth of passages that lay beneath the area of ​​the city south of the Seine. In fact, it is the area under the 14th, 15th, 5th and 6th arrondissements of Paris. That labyrinth had about 100 kilometers of underground galleries and passageways. Suttel will also write a book about these catacombs in 1986, entitled Catacombes et Carrières de Paris.

To create a map of the catacombs, Talairach used visible markers, such as inscriptions, groups of skulls, doors and sewers. Then he would measure the angles and distances between these points. He applied the same principle when creating the atlas.

In 1943, Suttel and Talairach handed over the map to the commander of the French resistance movement, Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy. The map enabled the colonel to locate SS bases and coordinate the Battle of Paris (August 15-23, 1944) from underground, until the Allies entered Paris on August 24, 1944, the same date as Bartholomew’s Night.

After the war, Jean Talairach was awarded the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest military award. A few remarks about Gabor Szikla, also an extraordinary mind, should be added here: he was from Budapest, and in 1956 he came to Paris to study, a type of specialization. However, there was a small problem – Szikla did not speak French, and all exams and exercises were held in French. He knew English, German and several dialects of Hungarian, but not a single word of French. Within two years he learned French and passed all the exams, which is a fantastic achievement.