Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

In memoriam of Professor Denise Albe‐Fessard

2004; Wiley; Volume: 8; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.ejpain.2003.11.013

1532-2149

Richard Rokyta,

Biofield Effects and Biophysics

I first met Professor Denise Albe-Fessard in 1966. As a young scientist, I visited Paris on occasion of the meeting of the "Association des Physiologistes". It was also the first time for me to visit the "Institut Marey", which was always the dream not only of the young, but virtually of all neurophysiologists from all over the world. A number of famous scientists were working there at that time, among others Professor Alfred Fessard, Director of the Institute and also, Doctor Ladislav Tauc, a former Czech citizen, and Professor Nagy. But one of the greatest personalities was undoubtedly Denise Albe-Fessard. My second chance to see her was one year later in 1967, during the congress of the "Association de Physiologistes" in Milan. On that occasion she was chairperson of the session in which I presented my first talk in French in a meeting of the "Association de Physiologistes". She was very kind to me and my coauthors and after our session we had a long discussion with her. She invited me to go and work with her at her laboratory at any time. In that period I had planned to go to the United States but unfortunately after the events of 1968 this proved impossible. I therefore agreed with Professor Albe-Fessard to work with her in France. However, it took some time for this to be arranged, so I finally arrived in her laboratory early in 1970 and spent 15 months there. During my stay, I had the opportunity to work with her personally in her own group. At that time we studied pain pathways by using antidromic stimulation of the cortex and recording responses in the thalamus using chronic preparations in cats and monkeys. It was all very interesting and stimulating, but also hard work. All experiments started between 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning and finished between 10 and 11 o'clock at night. Sometimes, especially when we used the chronic preparation in monkeys, we used to work for several days without any interruption and even slept in the laboratory. The enthusiasm of Madame Fessard for scientific work was incredible. During working hours she did not eat much and even when we were hungry we had no courage to ask her permission to go and eat. But the atmosphere in the laboratory was fantastic. We worked with an anesthesiologist from Paris, Doctor Alexandre Levante, who unfortunately, like Madame Fessard, also died in 2003. It was a very nice collaboration. As a result, we published an article in the International Journal of Neuroscience. Working with Madame Fessard was very hard, but also very inspiring and stimulating. It can be said that virtually all the most representative scientists in neurophysiology, not only in the pain field, but also in other fields, had worked or actually worked at the Institut Marey. While I was there, I had very stimulating interactions with many people from all over the world, and that experience was very good training for my future scientific work. Among the French scientists, I remember Jean-Marie-Besson, Giselle Gilbaud, Daniel Menetrey, Lulu Oliveras, Jean Paul Rivot, Marie Christinie Lombard, Jean Azerad, Bernard Pollin and many others; from the United States there were John Liebskind and Edward Perl, and McKenzie from Australia. Madame Fessard was very kind to people from Central and Eastern Europe; besides me there were: Jarmila Hasmanová-Myslivečková from Czechoslovakia, Elizabet Jankowska from Poland and Svetlana Rayeva and Karina Vetchinkina from Russia. I also remember Saros Kesar from India, but there were many other people from all over the world, including Mexico and Brazil. That was a time of great inspiration working in the field of neurophysiology, but unfortunately the golden period of the Institut Marey finished in 1976. During my first stay at the Institut the preparation started for the foundation of the IASP—InternationalAssociation for the Study of Pain—andin 1973 Madame Fessard was elected as first president of this international organization. Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in the first congress of IASP in Florence 1975. But I had the chance, 2 years later, to go to Paris for the International Congress of Physiological Sciences (IUPS). At that time, the Institut Marey and its laboratories had already moved to other locations. Madame Fessard had moved to the Faculté des Sciences-Quaie-Saint Bernard where she formed a new laboratory group with the same enthusiasm as before, with the result that her laboratories started working again in a very short time. During the time of the Paris Congress we prepared together the communication which I was due to present there; here again, it was very inspiring to work with her. We also made plans for a long-lasting collaboration and fortunately these were accepted by both Czechoslovakia and France. In 1980, I had the opportunity to go to Paris for six months to work with Madame Fessard again. At that time we studied the problem of the different projections of pain pathways to the nucleus reticularis thalami. The results of our work were published in Brain Research, together with Bernard Pollin. After this period, I went to Paris for short visits from time to time and Madame Fessard came to Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic as well. I will never forget her help for the foundation of the laboratory of microelectrophysiology in 1974 at the Medical Faculty in Plzeň where I was then working. We started work there with chronic preparations in cats, as we had already done in Paris. It was a very fruitful cooperation. Madame Fessard had many friends in Czechoslovakia and she came here very often; one of the closest was Professor Vladislav Kruta. She wrote the memorial article in honour of Prof. Kruta for the book edited by Professor Bravený and Doctor Franc. She also had a long-lasting friendship with Professor Helena Rašková, the nestor of Czech Pharmacology. During her last stay in Prague, Madame Fessard was a guest at her house and when she was ill, Madame Rašková served as her medical doctor. Madame Fessard was also a friend of many other Czech physiologists, to name a few, Jan Bureš, Ladislav Vyklický and Pavel Hník. But only Jarmila Hassmannová-Myslivečková and myself spent long working periods in Paris. I feel great admiration and gratitude for Madame Fessard, not only for her help with the foundation of my microelectrophysiological laboratory, but also for her help in preparing our manuscripts. She also proposed me as Secretary of the Association des Physiologistes. I was elected in 1980 and I spent more than 20 years in this function. Together with her husband and son we met several times either in France, in their houses, or in Czechoslovakia. When I received the news of Madame Fessard's death I was very sad, because I had spoken to her only one month before. She was very happy at the idea of coming to Prague again at the beginning of September 2003 for the fourth congress of EFIC as a honorary member. She discussed with me her accommodation, because she always preferred to be accommodated in Karolinum, in very old fashioned rooms which she liked so much. She loved Prague and especially Charles University, where she had received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa in 1998 for her contribution to world neurophysiology. This was based on my proposition and that of the 3rd Faculty of Medicine. She was also very pleased that I was able to translate her book on pain –"Douleur" – into Czech language in collaboration with my colleagues Karolina Höschlová and Anna Křížová. Czech pain specialists and beginners in the field of pain research were very grateful to have this book. Up to her last days we discussed our projects and ideas many times by phone, e-mail or fax. Madame Fessard was always ready to consider with an open mind all new trends in science and in daily life, too. She was a very impressive person, I think she influenced many people who worked in the field of neurophysiology. Some of her ideas are still valid today. At the end of my memorial article, I would like to express my thanks in three words: Merci beaucoup, Madame. Thank you very much, Madame Albe-Fessard.