Hysteria: The disturbing history Paperback – January 1, 2012 Author: Andrew Scull | Language: English | ISBN:
019969298X | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Review
Review from previous edition: "Elegantly constructed book...Skull is otherwise exemplary on the whole historical curve." --George Rousseau, TLS 20.08.10
"The stories they tell are often fascinating and alarming - pitched somewhere between farce, genius, horror and a lab report." --The Scotsman 23/10/2009
"These four 'biographies' of diseases go far beyond questions of biology or medical practice; they talk politics, sex and class, faith." --The Scotsman 23/10/2009
"The notion of an ailment having a birth, a lifespan, and - ideally - a demise...is an illuminating and useful concept." --Wendy Moore, British Medical Journal 31/10/2009
"Andrew Scull's exploration...provides an utterly enthralling study of medical ideology and sociology." --Wendy Moore, British Medical Journal 31/10/2009
"Should be required reading for all students of medicine." --Wendy Moore, British Medical Journal 31/10/2009
About the Author
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.
Books with free ebook downloads available Hysteria: The disturbing history – January 1, 2012
- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (January 1, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 019969298X
- ISBN-13: 978-0199692989
- Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 5 x 7.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #951,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This small volume by a professor of sociology at the University of California-San Diego is an entry in the Oxford University Press's recently-inaugurated Biographies of Disease series. Each volume tells the story of a different disease in historical and cultural context.
Hysteria is a strange, protean disorder. The author traces its history from the 17th century to the present, though it existed long before then. Among its many baffling features is the assumption of different guises in different eras. There seems to be a cultural element involved.
Historically the disorder has been associated primarily with women, although men suffer from it, too. Its name is derived from the Greek word for uterus, and it was formerly thought to be a malady primarily of the reproductive organs.
"Hysteria" has a decidedly negative connotation. Most doctors have never been able to understand or competently treat it, and have dismissed it or expressed contempt, anger, and even hatred and sadism toward their troublesome patients, whose dramatic and debilitating symptoms do not fit any medically recognized category. Throughout the centuries physicians have assumed that victims were malingerers, fakers, attention seekers, or actors melodramatically putting on a show.
A towering exception to the rule is famed 19th century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot of Paris, so significant in the history of hysteria that an entire chapter is devoted to him. Charcot was convinced that hysteria was a neurological disorder whose etiology remained unknown. He famously made a connection between hypnosis and hysteria, which is quite fascinating.
Author Scull devotes another chapter to a closely related 19th century disorder, neurasthenia.
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