Inheriting Madness : Professionalization and Psychiatric Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century France / Ian Dowbiggin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dowbiggin, Ian, Author.

Series:

Medicine and society ; volume 4.

Medicine and Society ; 4

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Société médico-psychologique.

Mental illness--France--History--19th century.

Mental illness.

Psychiatry--France--History--19th century.

Psychiatry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (228 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [1991]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Historically, one of the recurring arguments in psychiatry has been that heredity is the root cause of mental illness. In Inheriting Madness, Ian Dowbiggin traces the rise in popularity of hereditarianism in France during the second half of the nineteenth century to illuminate the nature and evolution of psychiatry during this period.In Dowbiggin's mind, this fondness for hereditarianism stemmed from the need to reconcile two counteracting factors. On the one hand, psychiatrists were attempting to expand their power and privileges by excluding other groups from the treatment of the mentally ill. On the other hand, medicine's failure to effectively diagnose, cure, and understand the causes of madness made it extremely difficult for psychiatrists to justify such an expansion. These two factors, Dowbiggin argues, shaped the way psychiatrists thought about insanity, encouraging them to adopt hereditarian ideas, such as the degeneracy theory, to explain why psychiatry had failed to meet expectations. Hereditarian theories, in turn, provided evidence of the need for psychiatrists to assume more authority, resources, and cultural influence.Inheriting Madness is a forceful reminder that psychiatric notions are deeply rooted in the social, political, and cultural history of the profession itself. At a time when genetic interpretations of mental disease are again in vogue, Dowbiggin demonstrates that these views are far from unprecedented, and that in fact they share remarkable similarities with earlier theories. A familiarity with the history of the psychiatric profession compels the author to ask whether or not public faith in it is warranted.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One. The State of Psychiatric Practice and Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century

Chapter Two. Francois Leuret and Medical Opposition to Moral Treatment, 1835-1850

Chapter Three. Jacques Moreau de Tours and the Crisis of Somaticism in French Psychiatry, 1840-1860

Chapter Four. Alienism and the Psychiatric Search for a Professional Identity: The Societe medicopsychologique, 1840-1870

Chapter Five. French Alienism and Antipsychiatry, 1860-1900

Chapter Six. Hereditarianism, the Clinic, and Psychiatric Practice in Nineteenth-Century France

Chapter Seven. Science, Politics, and Psychiatric Hereditarianism in the Nineteenth Century

Conclusion. The Social History of Psychiatric Knowledge

Notes

Index

Notes:

"Began as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Rochester"--P. ix.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-211) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9781282355651

1282355651

9780520909939

0520909933

9780585081441

0585081441

OCLC:

630528638