On Hysteria : The Invention of a Medical Category between 1670 and 1820 / Sabine Arnaud.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Arnaud, Sabine, Author.

Standardized Title:

Invention de l'hystérie au temps des Lumières, 1670-1820. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hysteria--History.

Hysteria.

Hysteria--France--History--18th century.

Hysteria--Early works to 1800.

Hysteria--Social aspects.

Hysteria in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (364 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

These days, hysteria is known as a discredited diagnosis that was used to group and pathologize a wide range of conditions and behaviors in women. But for a long time, it was seen as a legitimate category of medical problem-and one that, originally, was applied to men as often as to women. In On Hysteria, Sabine Arnaud traces the creation and rise of hysteria, from its invention in the eighteenth century through nineteenth-century therapeutic practice. Hysteria took shape, she shows, as a predominantly aristocratic malady, only beginning to cross class boundaries (and be limited to women) during the French Revolution. Unlike most studies of the role and status of medicine and its categories in this period, On Hysteria focuses not on institutions but on narrative strategies and writing-the ways that texts in a wide range of genres helped to build knowledge through misinterpretation and recontextualized citation. Powerfully interdisciplinary, and offering access to rare historical material for the first time in English, On Hysteria will speak to scholars in a wide range of fields, including the history of science, French studies, and comparative literature.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. Names and Uses of a Diagnosis

2. In Search of Metaphors: Figuring What Cannot Be Defined

3. The Writing of a Pathology and Practices of Dissemination

4. Code, Truth, or Ruse? The Vapors in the Republic of Letters

5. Relating Fits and Creating Enigmas: The Role of Narrative

6. Adopting Roles and Redefi ning Medicine

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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

ISBN:

9780226275680

022627568X

OCLC:

920466706