He was elected to the Paris city council in 1876 and to the French Parliament in 1883, where he served as a deputy until 1889.Leonard, Jacques, "La medecine entre les pourvoirs et les savoirs", 288; J Neurol (2000) 247:481. In both positions he advocated reforms of the health system. As a politician, he spearheaded efforts to train professional, secular nurses to replace the religious sisters who staffed most of the nation's hospitals at the time.Schultheiss, Katrin, Bodies and Souls: Politics and the Professionalization of Nursing in France, 1880–1922 (2001).
