Hysteria

The Disturbing History
Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-969298-9
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 131 mm x 203 mm, Gewicht: 257 g

Tells the story of a highly gendered 'disease', linked with changing perceptions of women and sexuality
Full of rich, fascinating - and sometimes shocking - detail of the experiences of hysterics under bizarre 'treatments'
Explores the social and cultural responses to hysteria through history
Written by a leading social and cultural historian

The nineteenth century seems to have been full of hysterical women - or so they were diagnosed. Where are they now? The very disease no longer exists. In this fascinating account, Andrew Scull tells the story of Hysteria - an illness that disappeared not through medical endeavour, but through growing understanding and cultural change. More generally, it raises the question of how diseases are framed, and how conceptions of a disease change through history.

The lurid history of hysteria makes fascinating reading. Charcot's clinics showed off flamboyantly 'hysterical' patients taking on sexualized poses, and among the visiting professionals was one Sigmund Freud. Scull discusses the origins of the idea of hysteria, the development of a neurological approach by John Sydenham and others, hysteria as a fashionable condition, and ist growth from the 17th century. Some regarded it as a peculiarly English malady, 'the natural concomitant of England's greater civilization and refinement'. Women were the majority of patients, and the illness became associated with female biology, resulting in some gruesome 'treatments'. Charcot and Freud were key practitioners defining the nature of the illness. But curiously, the illness seemed to swap gender during the First World War when male hysterics frequently suffering from shell shock were also subjected to brutal 'treatments'. Subsequently, the 'disease' declined and eventually disappeared, at least in professional circles, though attenuated elements remain, reclassified for instance as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Zielgruppe

Readers of popular science and those interested in the history of medicine and science

Autoren/Hrsg.

Scull, Andrew

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Geschichte der Psychologie
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Prologue: Suffocation of the mother
1: Mysteria
2: Neurologie
3: An English malady?
4: Reflexly mad
5: American Nervousness
6: A hysterical circus
7: Freudian hysterics
8: The wounds of war
9: L'hystérie morte?
Further reading

Über Autor(innen)

Scull, Andrew
Andrew Scull, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies

Andrew Scull has held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and the University of California, where he is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies. He is a past president of the Society for the Social History of Medicine, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, many of them on the history of psychiatry in Britain and the United States. He has lectured on five continents, as well as making many media appearances on programmes dealing with mental health issues.

Andrew Scull has held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and the University of California, where he is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies. He is a past president of the Society for the Social History of Medicine, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, many of them on the history of psychiatry in Britain and the United States. He has lectured on five continents, as well as making many media appearances on programmes dealing with mental health issues.