Cécile Vogt-Mugnier

French neurologist (1875–1962)

Cécile Vogt Mugnier (27 March 1875 – 4 May 1962) was a French neurologist from Haute Savoie. She and her husband Oskar Vogt are known for their extensive cytoarchetecture studies on the brain.

Cécile Vogt Mugnier was born Augustine Marie Cécile Mugnier in Annecy, France and she lost her father when she was only two years old. A wealthy and devoutly religious aunt paid for her education at a convent school, but Cécile rebelled against the system shortly after her first communion. Disinherited, she returned to live with her mother but continued with her studies. She prepared for her baccalauréat examinations with private teachers and obtained a bachelor's degree in science. At the age of eighteen she became one of the very few women to be admitted to the medical school in Paris.

In 1897, 22 year old Cécile Vogt Mugnier found herself pregnant, unmarried, and in the middle of earning a medical degree. While at Bicêtre Vogt Mugnier met her future husband, Oskar Vogt, when he came to Paris to work with Joseph Jules Déjérine (and his wife, Augusta Marie Dejerine Klumke, who collaborated with him). Little is known about their first meetings in 1898, except that they hardly understood each other's language. Claire Vogt (1898 1978) was a illegitimate daughter of Vogt Mugnier born out of wedlock by an unknown father. At the age of 4 she is recognized by Oskar Vogt as her daughter. She was a pioneering pediatric neurologist and neuropsychiatrist in Paris. Marthe Vogt (1903–2003) was a neuropharmacologist who became a Fellow of the Royal Society and a professor at Cambridge. Marguerite Vogt (1913–2007) started as a developmental geneticist working in Drosophila, then moved to the US in 1950. She developed methods to culture poliovirus with Renato Dulbecco. She was a faculty member at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies where she worked on viral transformation and cellular immortalization of cancer cells.

Later in their career, the Vogts turned their focus to genetics, experimenting with insects that they had collected on their holiday trips to the Caucasus, the Balkans, North Africa, and the Balearic Islands. Their younger daughter Marguerite pursued this research for some ten years before departing to California. They continued their work until Oskar died in 1959, and after the death of her husband Vogt Mugnier moved to Cambridge, England to be with their elder daughter Marthe. Cécile died there in 1962.