History of leucotomies in Greece
In order to present the social, scientific and institutional context which permitted the use of leucotomies in Greece, we have reviewed the Archives of the Medical Associations, the medical literature of the years 1946–56, a reader’s dissertation and the memoirs of two psychiatrists. More than 250 leucotomies were done in the two public psychiatric hospitals in Athens from 1947 to 1954, as well as 40 leucotomies in the public psychiatric hospital in Thessaloniki. Although aware of the side effects, psychiatrists justified the use of the procedure. The performance of leucotomies in Greece declined because of rep...
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Ploumpidis, D., Tsiamis, C., Poulakou-Rebelakou, E. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Mobilizing Clouston in the colonies? General paralysis of the insane at the Auckland Mental Hospital, 1868-99
This article examines the diagnosis of general paralysis of the insane (GPI) at the Auckland Mental Hospital, New Zealand, between 1868 and 1899, and changes in the identified causes of this condition. It argues that despite long-standing evidence citing the role of syphilis, asylum doctors working in New Zealand were as reluctant as their English and Scottish colleagues to blame syphilis alone for GPI. It also argues that although syphilis became a more popular cause in the aetiology of GPI by the end of the nineteenth century, medical and non-medical sources continued to cite other causes for GPI. (Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: O'Connor, M. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Shell shock in Ireland: The Richmond War Hospital, Dublin (1916-19)
The history of mental disorders occasioned by World War I is a complex and important history, indelibly linked with social, political and cultural circumstances, and the history of the war itself. The Richmond War Hospital was a 32-bed establishment on the grounds of the large Richmond District Asylum in Dublin which, from 16 June 1916 until 23 December 1919, treated 362 soldiers with shell shock and other mental disorders, of whom more than half were considered to have recovered. Despite the limitations of the Richmond War Hospital, it was a generally forward-looking institution that pointed the way for future reform of I...
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Kelly, B. D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
From paranoia querulans to vexatious litigants: a short study on madness between psychiatry and the law. Part 2
This study suggests that the lack of thorough research on querulous paranoia in these countries is due to a broad cultural, legal and medical context which has caused unreasonable complainants to be considered a purely legal, rather than a medical issue. To support this hypothesis, I analyse how legal steps have been taken throughout the English-speaking world since 1896 to keep the unreasonable complainants at bay, and I present reasons why medical measures have scarcely been adopted. However, I also submit evidence that this division of responsibilities between the judges and the psychiatrists has taken a new turn since ...
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Levy, B. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Photography and radical psychiatry in Italy in the 1960s. The case of the photobook Morire di Classe (1969)
This article re-examines in detail the content of this celebrated book and its history, and its impact on the struggle to reform and abolish large-scale psychiatric institutions. It also places the book in its social and political context and as a key text of the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s. (Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Foot, J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Constance Pascal's Chagrins d'amour et psychoses (1935): a French psychiatrist's views on psychoanalysis
In 1935 Constance Pascal (1877–1937), France’s first woman psychiatrist, published Chagrins d’amour et psychoses (The Sorrows of Love and Psychosis). My analysis of her monograph will consider: her major article leading up to Chagrins; Pascal’s debts to her predecessors, particularly Morel and Kretschmer; her relationship to the French psychoanalytic movement; her co-option of psychoanalysis as a tool in her own therapeutic work with patients in the state psychiatric system; and her social/cultural interpretations of her woman patients. The literary and philosophic aspects of her work are emphasized...
Source: History of Psychiatry - February 19, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Gordon, F. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Congratulatory Notes
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Tags: Congratulatory Notes Source Type: research
'Introduction' to 'Episodic Psychoses', by Erik Stromgren (1940): Introduction and translation by
This anniversary Classic Text, the ‘Introduction’ from Strömgren’s ‘Episodic Psychoses’, provides a comprehensive, concise and erudite exposition of the history, nosography and nosology of these conditions. Strömgren traces the origin of this term and concepts back to Magnan’s degeneration psychoses and associated ‘syndromes épisodiques’. Especially inspired by ‘the psychogenic psychosis’ (1916), the seminal work by his mentor, August Wimmer, he convincingly shows that the episodic psychoses constitute an intermediate link between the degeneration...
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Schioldann, J. Tags: Classic Text No. 100 Source Type: research
The ten most important changes in psychiatry since World War II
This article seeks to explore the most significant changes occurring in Western, and especially American, psychiatry from the end of World War II up to the present by interrogating a representative selection of psychiatrists and psychologists about the subject. Over a three-year period, the author surveyed approximately 200 mental health experts on their perceptions of change in the world of psychiatric theory and practice during this enormously eventful 70-year period. After presenting the survey results, the article then attempts to analyse the answers that the author did (and did not) obtain from his poll-taking subject...
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Micale, M. S. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The distinction between 'Passion' and 'Emotion'. Vincenzo Chiarugi: a case study
The distinction between ‘passion’ and ‘emotion’ has been largely overlooked in the history of psychiatry and the psychopathology of affectivity. A version of the distinction that has gone completely unnoticed is the one proposed by Florentine physician Vincenzo Chiarugi (1759–1820). The purpose of the present discussion is to introduce this Italian version of the distinction and to inquire into its origins. (Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Charland, L. C. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
White men and weak masculinity: men in the public asylums in Victoria, Australia, and New Zealand, 1860s-1900s
This article reveals a set of formulations of masculine identity through the fragments of extant casebook evidence from nineteenth-century psychiatric institutions in Victoria, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand. It shows that some patterns in the identification of masculinity and insanity emerge, also highlighting the relevance of individual stories and ‘cases’ to fully understand how masculine identities were fashioned through medical institutional language. (Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Coleborne, C. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Subjectivity in clinical practice: on the origins of psychiatric semiology in early French alienism
The aim of this article is to contribute to the analysis of the origins of psychiatric semiology, which by emphasizing subjectivity in clinical practice, gave birth to psychopathology as the scientific and intellectual enterprise of alienism. In other words, beyond simple anatomical and clinical observation, there was an effort to ‘listen to’ and ‘read’ the patient’s delirium. In essence, the basic thesis which this short paper seeks to defend is that, despite a growing anatomical and clinical mind-set and a clear interest in physically locating mental illness within the body, during the Roman...
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Huertas, R. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Psychiatric 'diseases' in history
A history of psychiatry cannot step back from the question of psychiatric diseases, but the field has in general viewed psychiatric entities as manifestations of the human state rather than medical diseases. There is little acknowledgement that a true disease is likely to rise and fall in incidence. In outlining the North Wales History of Mental Illness project, this paper seeks to provide some evidence that psychiatric diseases do rise and fall in incidence, along with evidence as to how such ideas are received by other historians of psychiatry and by biological psychiatrists. (Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Healy, D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Madness as disability
How does society imagine mental illness? Does this shift radically over time and with different social attitudes as well as scientific discoveries about the origins and meanings of mental illness? What happens when we begin to think about mental illness as madness, as a malleable concept constantly shifting its meaning? We thus look at the meanings associated with ‘general paralysis of the insane’ in the nineteenth century and autism today in regard to disability. In this case study we examine the claims by scholars such as the anthropologist Emily Martin and the psychiatrist Kay Jamison as to the relationship ...
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Gilman, S. L. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The birth of schizophrenia or a very modern Bleuler: a close reading of Eugen Bleuler's 'Die Prognose der Dementia praecox' and a re-consideration of his contribution to psychiatry
After Eugen Bleuler introduced ‘schizophrenia’ in 1908, the term was hotly debated but eventually led to the abandonment of Kraepelin’s previous term ‘dementia praecox’. Bleuler’s contribution has subsequently been interpreted in two main ways. One tradition holds that Bleuler merely renamed ‘dementia praecox’ while conceptually continuing the Kraepelinian tradition. The other, focusing on Bleuler’s characterization of ‘dementia praecox’ in terms of specific psychological alterations, accredits him with a genuine re-conceptualization. Based on a close readin...
Source: History of Psychiatry - November 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Maatz, A., Hoff, P. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
