Lectures On The History Of Psychiatry

The inspiration for the PBS series Mysterious of Mental Illness, Shrinks brilliantly tells the "astonishing" story of psychiatry's origins, demise, and redemption (Siddhartha Mukherjee). Psychiatry has come a long way since the days of chaining "lunatics" in cold cells and parading them as freakish marvels before a gaping public. But, as Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, the former president of the American Psychiatric Association, reveals in his extraordinary and eye-opening book, the path to legitimacy for "the black sheep of medicine" has been anything but smooth. In Shrinks, Dr. Lieberman traces the field from its birth as a mystic pseudo-science through its adolescence as a cult of "shrinks" to its late blooming maturity — beginning after World War II — as a science-driven profession that saves lives. With fascinating case studies and portraits of the luminaries of the field — from Sigmund Freud to Eric Kandel — Shrinks is a gripping and illuminating read, and an urgent call-to-arms to dispel the stigma of mental illnesses by treating them as diseases rather than unfortunate states of mind. “A lucid popular history...At once skeptical and triumphalist. It shows just how far psychiatry has come.” —Julia M. Klein, Boston Globe

In this new addition to the Collège de France Lecture Series Michel Foucault explores the birth of psychiatry, examining Western society's division of 'mad' and 'sane' and how medicine and law influenced these attitudes. This seminal new work by a leading thinker of the modern age opens new vistas within historical and philosophical study.

"All those who have at any time given clinical demonstrations on disease must have felt the desire to impress more firmly on their hearers the remembrance of what they have seen than is possible in an ordinary lecture. After many attempts to arrive at this in some other way, I have now tried to preserve, in a measure, the impressions of a term’s clinical work in the form of the lectures contained in the following pages. In my descriptions I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to follow the actual course of the lectures. Naturally, not only must this work give up all claim to the actual presentation of the patients, for which the student can only be compensated by personal experience in the hospital, but we must also forego the great help to teaching afforded by the assistant’s little awkwardnesses and blunders, which so often serve to point out to the teacher the right method of instruction. On the other hand, the material can in this way be worked up more concisely, more systematically, and more completely than is generally possible in the hospital. In these lectures I have always kept the diagnostic point of view in the foreground, being convinced of its fundamental importance, not only to our scientific ideas, but also as affecting the advice we shall have to give in our medical practice, and the methods of treatment to be adopted by us. In my opinion, what the student ought to learn in the hospital, besides the examination of patients, is not text-book knowledge, which he can acquire just as well, or better, at home, but how to turn his observations to account, and the careful judgment of any given case. These lectures, then, must not in any way be looked upon as a textbook of alienism. Their aim will be far better attained if they prove of some value as a guide to the clinical investigation of the insane. The examples of disease, which for obvious reasons have been taken from entirely separate years, and some of which have been utilized elsewhere, do not profess in their brief outline to be scientific records. Nevertheless, each individual case is delineated with the greatest possible truth to life, while the diagnostic developments are almost entirely taken directly from notes upon clinical demonstrations. Inquiries as to the further history of the patients were carried on, as far as possible, up to going to press, and, for the most part, were only added after the whole was complete." This classic includes the following chapters: I. Introduction: Melancholia II. Depressed Stages of Maniacal-Depressive Insanity (Circular Stupor) III. Dementia Praecox IV. Katatonic Stupor V. States of Depression in General Paralysis VI. Epileptic Insanity VII. Maniacal Excitement VIII. Mixed Conditions of Maniacal-Depressive Insanity IX. Katatonic Excitement X. Megalomania in General Paralysis XI. Alcoholic Mental Disturbances XII. Insanity in Acute Diseases XIII. Varieties of Delirium XIV. Puerperal Insanity XV. Paranoia, or Progressive Systematized Insanity XVI. Paranoidal Forms of Dementia Praecox XVII. Different Forms of Delusions XVIII. Chronic Alcoholism XIX. Morphinism and Cocainism XX. Final Stages of General Paralysis of the Insane XXI. Final Stages of Dementia Praecox XXII. Dementia From Coarse Brain Lesions XXIII. Senile Dementia XXIV. Epileptic Feeble-Mindedness XXV. Hysterical Insanity XXVI. Insanity After Injuries to the Head XXVII. Irrepressible Ideas and Irresistible Fears XXVIII. Congenital States of Disease XXIX. Morbid Personalities XXX. Morbid Criminals and Vagabonds XXXI. Imbecility-Idiocy XXXII. Cretinism—Concluding Remarks

This work is a collection of Carl Wenicke’s lectures on neuropsychiatry translated into English for the first time. Beginning with basic concepts about normal brain function, the book moves to clinical topics, dealing first with chronic mental disorders and 'paranoid states', and then to the more complex area of acute mental disorders. Many of the featured topics are still clinically relevant, and matters of contemporary debate. Carl Wernicke is one of the pioneers of neurology and psychiatry; clinicians, researchers and historians will find this of great interest.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.