Herculano Sa de Figueiredo (1911-74): a sculptor in the Conde de Ferreira Hospital, Portugal
Herculano Sá de Figueiredo’s sculptures remained anonymous inside the Conde de Ferreira Hospital of Oporto (Portugal) for over 30 years. The accidental discovery of the patient’s clinical file enabled the authors of this paper to establish the link between the man, his work and his psychiatric pathology. The artwork kept in the hospital was not previously known in academic and artistic circles. Studying and recovering Figueiredo’s work is important because a considerable part of his oeuvre was produced from 1955 to 1973, when he was a patient in the Conde de Ferreira Hospital. The models represente...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 28, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Gramary, A., Lopes, C., Ribeiro, J. P. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Psychiatrists, mental health provision and 'senile dementia' in England, 1940s-1979
Until around 1979, ‘confused’ or mentally unwell people over 65 years of age tended to be labelled as having ‘senile dementia’. Senile dementia was usually regarded as a single, inevitably hopeless condition, despite gradually accumulating clinical and pathological evidence to the contrary. Specific psychiatric services for mental illness in older people began to emerge in the 1950s, but by 1969 there were fewer than 10 dedicated services nationally. During the 1970s, ‘old age psychiatrists’ established local services and campaigned n...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 28, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Hilton, C. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
World citizenship and the emergence of the social psychiatry project of the World Health Organization, 1948-c.1965
This paper examines the relationship between ‘world citizenship’ and the new psychiatric research paradigm established by the World Health Organization in the early post-World War II period. Endorsing the humanitarian ideological concept of ‘world citizenship’, health professionals called for global rehabilitation initiatives to address the devastation after the war. The charm of world citizenship had not only provided theoretical grounds of international collaborative research into the psychopathology of psychiatric diseases, but also gave birth to the international psychiatric epidemiologic studie...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 28, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Wu, H. Y.-J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
'At variance with the most elementary principles': the state of British colonial lunatic asylums in 1863
This article outlines the background, process and scope of the review of asylums, and considers its significance. The resulting ‘digest’ is an important source to explain how, why, when and by whom metropolitan ideas acquired official endorsement and spread throughout the British world. Using the review’s general findings and suggestions, a tool is provided for comparing inter-colonial achievements. With New Zealand as a case study, the article concludes that, relative to other influences, the digest played a limited and largely indirect part in shaping New Zealand’s mental health policy before 1876...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 28, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Brunton, W. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
First rank symptoms of schizophrenia: their nature and origin
Kurt Schneider’s insight nearly 80 years ago that schizophrenia could be demarcated from other psychoses by a small set of particular delusions and hallucinations powerfully influenced diagnostic practice. The theoretical status of such ‘first rank symptoms’ as a whole, however, has rarely been addressed. But if they are sensitive and specific to the condition, it is about time that their essential nature and potential origin be considered. This is the purpose of the present paper. I argue that these psychopathological phenomena are indeed relatively sensitive and specific to the condition, that their nat...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 28, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Cutting, J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Book Review: Erika Dyck, Facing Eugenics: Reproduction, Sterilization, and the Politics of Choice
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dowbiggin, I. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: Catherine Cox and Hilary Marland (eds), Migration, Health and Ethnicity in the Modern World
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Greenwood, A. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: Tom Burns, Our Necessary Shadow: The Nature and Meaning of Psychiatry
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Long, V. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: John Stewart, Child Guidance in Britain, 1918-1955: The Dangerous Age of Childhood
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Levene, A. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: Alan Doyle, Julius Lanoil and Kenneth Dudek, Fountain House: Creating Community in Mental Health Practice
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Trivelli, E. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: Lisa M. Hermsen, Manic Minds: Mania's Mad History and its Neuro-Future
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Wetherall-Dickson, L. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: Wendy J. Turner, Care and Custody of the Mentally Ill, Incompetent, and Disabled in Medieval England
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Trenery, C. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
David Hartley's views on Madness: With an introduction by
The psychiatric aspects of David Hartley’s writings have received less attention than the rest of his work. This Classic Text deals with Section VI of his Observations on Man ..., namely, the ‘Imperfections of the rational Faculty’. Hartley defines madness as an imperfection of reason that can be temporary or enduring. He makes use of his model of mental functioning to differentiate between eight clinical categories of madness, each representing a different pattern of vibrations of the nerves. Hartley developed this model based on Newton’s theory of vibrations and, to explain the complexity of menta...
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Berrios, G. Tags: Classic Text No. 101 Source Type: research
The Jewish psychiatric hospital, Zofiowka, in Otwock, Poland
The T4 euthanasia programme within Nazi Germany has been well researched, but much less is known about the extermination of psychiatric patients in Nazi-occupied territories during the same period. In Poland 20,000 mentally ill patients were deliberately killed during the German occupation. This paper traces the history of one psychiatric hospital, Zofiówka, in Otwock, south-east of Warsaw. The hospital once served the Jewish population of Poland and was the largest, most prestigious neuropsychiatric centre in the country. It is now in ruins and said to be haunted by ghosts. (Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Seeman, M. V. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Psychological symptoms and medical responses in nineteenth-century India
The article documents medical approaches to mental illness in mid- to late-nineteenth-century India through examining the Indian Medical Gazette and other medical accounts. By the late nineteenth century, psychiatry in Europe moved from discussions around asylum-based care to a nuanced and informed debate about the nature of mental symptoms. This included ideas on phrenology and craniometry, biological and psycho-social causes, physical and drug treatments, many of which travelled to India. Simultaneously, indigenous socio-medical ideas were being debated. From the early to the mid-nineteenth century, not much distinction ...
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Radhika, P., Murthy, P., Sarin, A., Jain, S. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
