MAC AULIFFE (Léon). Born in Paris, 1876-1937. French physici - Lot 102

MAC AULIFFE (Léon). Born in Paris, 1876-1937. French physician, morphologist and anthropologist. Former assistant director at the École des Hautes Études. Large L.A.S. "Mac Auliffe" to "Mon cher ami" [Pierre Abraham]. S.l.n.d. [1929]. 4 pp. in-8 on headed paper of Dr. Léon Mac-Auliffe, 6 rue Octave-Feuillet, Paris XVIe. Very interesting literary and physiognomonic letter about Pierre Abraham's Balzac, published by Rieder in 1929. Mac Auliffe thanks his correspondent for sending his book and for quoting him in this study, which he considers remarkable: "Your 'Balzac' is deeply thought-out, original, new: it will mark literary history and serve as a model." The author then develops a morphological and physiognomonic analysis of Balzac, typical of the anthropological and medical theories he was defending at the time. Seeking to explain the writer's excessive overweight and certain traits of his temperament, he asserts: "It seems that during childhood he was very malnourished; he 'compensated' by an enormous dilatation of the digestive tract and the whole body." Mac Auliffe continues his pseudo-scientific interpretation by linking Balzac's morphology to his intellectual and nervous functioning: "These excessive dilations are the prerogative of the powerful and the strong - Don't make them who wants." He also evokes cerebral "hyperexcitability" and "massive feasts of excitement", before explaining Balzac's death by heart failure resulting from this "enormous dilatation" of the organism: "That, I believe, is how we can interpret the general functioning of man by his morphology." The letter is notable for the highly personal and theoretical nature of Mac Auliffe's observations, combining literary admiration, physiognomonic anthropology and medical speculation on creative genius. A fine quotation by André Jacquelin published in La Presse Médicale is enclosed: "I remember him during hospital mornings, inspecting each patient with his eyes... his slightly heavy but remarkably expressive lips would part and briefly formulate a morphological diagnosis whose incisive penetration confounded us." Rare testimony to French morphological theories of the interwar period, applied to the figure of Balzac. Of great interest for the history of medical ideas, physiognomy and Balzac's critical reception in the 20th century.