ESQUIROL, JEAN ETIENNE DOMINIQUE (1772— 1840), French alienist, was born at Toulouse on Feb. 3, 1772. In 1794 he became a pupil at the military hospital of Narbonne, and subsequently studied in Paris at the Salpetriere under P. Pinel, whose assistant he became. In 1811 he was chosen physician to the Salpetriere, and in 1817 he began a course of lectures on the treatment of the insane, which led to the appointment of a commission to inquire into the subject. The asylums of Rouen, Nantes and Montpellier were built in accordance with his plans. In 1823 he became inspector-general of the university of Paris for the faculties of medicine and in 1826 chief physician of the asylum at Charenton. He died in Paris on Dec. 13, 1840. Es quirol's principal work is Des maladies mentales, considerees sous les rapports medicaux, hygieniques, et medico-legaux (1838), which provides the first rational, scientific treatment of the sub ject. He first sketched out the main forms of insanity, and was the founder of a great school of French alienists who developed the work he had begun. See INSANITY.