Charcot, Jean Baptiste

Charcot, Jean Baptiste (zhäN bätēst` shärkō`), 1867–1936, French neurologist and explorer in the antarctic region; son of Jean Martin Charcot. He became (1896) director of clinics at the Univ. of Paris but soon gave up medicine for exploration. In two voyages (1903–7, 1908–10) he surveyed the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, obtaining valuable scientific data. After 1920, Charcot made seven scientific voyages to Greenland aboard his ship, the Pourquoi Pas?. In 1935 he came out of retirement for a final expedition to Greenland. Crashing into a reef, Charcot went down with his celebrated ship off the coast of Iceland. His antarctic voyages were recorded in his Le Pourquoi Pas? dans l'antarctique (1910, tr. The Voyage of the Why Not? in the Antarctic, 1911).