the everyday operation of Biên Hòa asylum, which was founded in 1919 and functioned both as a medical institution and a large agricultural colony. This chapter gives very rich details of the organization, discipline, and racial and social segregation, as well as institutional challenges such as overcrowding, high staff turnover, and patient protests. Hampered by budgetary constraints and unruly staff, French medical experts then promoted agricultural work as a path to healing and eventual liberation; this special kind of labour therapy is documented in Chapter 3. Appropriating metropolitan discourses on the virtues of patient employment and lessons from the Dutch East Indies, French psychiatrists used the therapeutic and economic imperatives for labour to blur the distinctions between patients and labourers, between spaces of confinement and return. Chapter 4, which in my opinion is one of the strongest chapters in the book, tells the stories of patients, their families and the social and communal practices of psychiatric care. This chapter follows the journey of patients in and out of the asylum and, in some cases, back to family homes. It details the complex negotiations between psychiatrist, colonial authorities and families in determining the length and suitable forms of treatment for their loved ones, which often strayed from the French medical framework. The book gives special attention to the Vietnamese medium rituals and other folk traditions that were commonly used for patients being cared for at home. According to the author, these varied care practices outside the asylum ‘signal not only small erosions in the authority of colonial psychiatrists but also the emergence of a new, more diffuse kind of psychiatric power’ (p. 152). Chapter 5 reinforces this line of argument with its analysis of discourses in the very active Vietnamese print media. Writers, experts, social commentators and the public used the local press as a forum, not only to discuss mental illness but also to launch social critiques against the perils of modern urban society, rural superstition, gender roles, colonial corruption and excessive materialism. Chapter 6 wraps up the book with a discussion of the role of psychiatric expertise in crime prevention among juvenile delinquents and in certification of insanity for court cases. While the book discusses in depth the social circumstances and environment that contributed to mental illness and its treatment, the role of heredity and its impact on medical and family care deserve more attention from the author. I would also have liked more information on treatment methods such as the use of electric shocks, paludotherapy and somatic therapy (pp. 72, 73). Also, while juvenile delinquency attracted the attention of psychiatrist experts, what about dangerous criminals? Was there any connection between electroshock therapy, or other aggressive forms of intervention, and French criminal punishment and torture before and during the first Indochina War? Regardless of these minor reservations, the book successfully adds nuance and texture to the history of psychiatric care in colonial Vietnam. Its strong source-based investigation and perspectives make it an important contribution to the social and medical history of Vietnam, as well as the global history of psychiatry. The book would be a very useful companion for students and scholars with a research focus on medical history in the colonial context, or for those with broad interests in the history of science, colonial studies and the history of modern Vietnam.

中文翻译：

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书评：卢卡斯·里希特，奇怪的旅行：科学、文化和毒品监管

Biên Hòa 庇护所的日常运作，该庇护所成立于 1919 年，既是一家医疗机构，也是一个大型农业殖民地。本章详细介绍了组织、纪律、种族和社会隔离，以及制度上的挑战，例如人满为患、员工流失率高和患者抗议。受预算限制和员工不守规矩的阻碍，法国医学专家随后将农业工作作为治愈和最终解放的途径；这种特殊的分娩疗法记录在第 3 章中。 法国精神病学家利用大都市关于患者就业的美德和来自荷属东印度群岛的教训的话语，利用分娩的治疗和经济必要性来模糊患者和劳工之间的区别，在禁闭空间和返回空间之间。在我看来，第 4 章是本书中最有力的章节之一，讲述了患者、他们的家人以及精神科护理的社会和公共实践的故事。本章讲述了病人进出庇护所的旅程，在某些情况下，他们还回到了家庭。它详细介绍了精神病医生、殖民当局和家属之间在确定亲人的治疗时间和合适的治疗形式方面的复杂谈判，这往往偏离了法国的医疗框架。这本书特别关注了越南的媒介仪式和其他民间传统，这些习俗通常用于在家中照顾病人。据作者介绍，这些庇护外的各种护理实践“不仅标志着殖民精神病学家权威的小幅削弱，而且表明出现了一种新的、更分散的精神病学权力”（第 152 页）。第 5 章通过分析非常活跃的越南印刷媒体中的话语来强化这一论点。作家、专家、社会评论员和公众以当地媒体为论坛，不仅讨论精神疾病，还针对现代城市社会的危害、农村迷信、性别角色、殖民腐败和过度物质主义发起社会批判。第 6 章对这本书的结尾进行了讨论，讨论了精神病学专业知识在预防青少年犯罪和法庭案件精神失常证明中的作用。虽然本书深入讨论了导致精神疾病及其治疗的社会环境和环境，但遗传的作用及其对医疗和家庭护理的影响值得作者更多关注。我还希望获得更多有关治疗方法的信息，例如使用电击、paludotherapy 和躯体疗法（第 72、73 页）。此外，虽然青少年犯罪引起了精神病专家的注意，但危险的罪犯呢？在第一次印度支那战争之前和期间，电击疗法或其他侵略性干预与法国的刑事处罚和酷刑之间是否有任何联系？尽管有这些细微的保留，这本书成功地为越南殖民时期的精神病护理历史增添了细微差别和质感。其强大的基于来源的调查和观点使其对越南的社会和医学史以及全球精神病学史做出了重要贡献。对于专注于殖民背景下医学史研究的学生和学者，或对科学史、殖民研究和现代越南历史有广泛兴趣的学生和学者，这本书将是非常有用的伴侣。