He wanted to make paraplegics walk: Montpellier native Pierre Rabischong died at the age of 93

Pierre Rabischong with the implant that made Marc Merger walk, in 1999. Midi Libre – JM MART

The Montpellier doctor was one of the founders of the Propara rehabilitation center. In 1999, he managed to make a paraplegic walk again, as part of the European program "Get up and walk", thanks to the development of the world's first functional electrical stimulation implant.

A doctor and dreamer of a world where technology would allow paraplegics to walk again, Montpellier resident Pierre Rabischong died at the age of 93.

Pierre Rabischong, co-founder of the Propara Institute in Montpellier, was a “character”, a jack-of-all-trades and iconoclast, passionate, atypical, out of the norm and sometimes out of the box.

In 1999, the European project “Raise the roof and walk” granted him funds to pursue a crazy project: to make paraplegics walk again, thanks to an implant for electrostimulation of the muscles and nerves. A first patient, Marc Merger from Strasbourg, 38, was operated on on September 28 at Propara, he walked under the eye of Midi Libre, the cameras… but also under the fire of criticism from colleagues who regretted that the results had not been validated by a scientific publication.

The program will not be completed. But the idea, and the technology, have made their way: in May 2023, when Franco-Swiss researchers make a paraplegic walk again using the power of thought, it is Pierre Rabischong that Marc Merger thinks of, who kept the innovative implant fitted at Propara for twelve years: “The Swiss project to make a paraplegic walk again using thought would not have existed without the research carried out in Montpellier, more than twenty years ago” , he reminds Midi Libre.

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“With Pierre Rabischong, we already imagined a command by thought”

And it is indeed the European program “Get up and walk”, led by Pierre Rabischong, which has was taken over by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), in association with the CEA in Grenoble, to get the Dutchman Gert-Jan Oskam walking again two years ago.

“With Pierre Rabischong, we were already imagining thought control in the future, we're getting there! We're already there in the American army's flight simulators that work with artificial intelligence”, Marc Merger, who has long maintained friendly contact with the Montpellier doctor, enthused a few months ago.

A graduate in 1955 from the Faculty of Medicine in Nancy, where he was born in 1932, Pierre Rabischong was a doctor, surgeon, he had also studied anthropology and specialized in neuropsychiatry. A prolific author, he had written many reference works, “The Man Program”, “Que sais-je” “The Handicap”, “The Builder”… and chaired many learned societies.

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine

He was appointed to the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, after his aggregation of anatomy, in 1961, the year in which he was assigned to the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier.

In 1964, he became the holder of the chair of anatomy and occupied the position of head of the functional exploration department of the motor system of the CHU.

From 1971, he directed an Inserm unit of biomechanical research, which he obtained the creation, and remained at its head until 1995. In the meantime, he was dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier (1979-1981). In 1982, he founded the Propara center, with professors Grasset, Vidal, Allieu and Gros. The center, which operates as an association, takes care of spinal cord injuries, it is also a surgical clinic, before becoming a rehabilitation center in 2004, when it is transferred to the mutualist banner. This is where the program “Get up and walk” will be conducted.

Pierre Rabischong's funeral will be held at the Saint-Pierre Cathedral in Montpellier on January 27 at 10:30 a.m.

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