In this essay I look at the art of children as a tool in the medical-pedagogical approach, as proposed by the founder of child psychiatry in Portugal, Vítor Fontes (1893–1979). First, the topic of the art of children is introduced, and the second part focuses on the model of medical pedagogy as it was practised in Portugal. The third and fourth parts present Fontes’s own investigations on the drawings

These two articles analyse the importance of J.J. Moreau de Tours’ work and its influence on the development of descriptive psychopathology from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The first article focused on biographical aspects and presented Moreau’s main works in their social and cultural contexts. This second article critically analyses Moreau’s contributions from different perspectives:

During World War I, civilians became a target of the war machine. Air raids transformed the lives of those not involved in active combat and blurred the lines between the home front and the war front. This paper argues that the experience of air raids in World War I was comparable to the combat stress at the Western Front. The author bases her argument on contemporary publications in medical journals

This paper identifies some of the themes that emerge from a study of official archival records from 1918 to 1934 on the subject of mental health in colonial Lesotho. They include: difficulties experienced by colonial medical doctors in diagnosing and treating mental illnesses, given the state of medical knowledge in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; impact of shortage of financial and other

This article demonstrates how psychoanalytic thought, especially ideas by Adler, Reik, Deutsch, and Alexander and Staub, informed forensic psychiatry in the Netherlands from the late 1920s. An analysis of psychiatric explanations of the crime of infanticide shows how in these cases the focus of (forensic) medicine and psychiatry shifted from somatic medicine to a psychoanalytic emphasis on unconscious

In this article I trace a history of the most ubiquitous visual symbol of madness: the staff. First, I argue that the staff, in its variants (such as the pinwheel) and with its attachments (such as an inflated bladder), represents madness as air. It thus represents madness as an invisible entity that must be made visible. Secondly, I claim that the staff – being iconic of other ‘unwanted’ categories

This paper investigates the role of admission forms in the regulation of asylum confinement in the second half of the nineteenth century. Taking the Toronto Lunatic Asylum as a case study it traces the evolution of the forms’ content and structure during the first decades of this institution. Admission forms provide important material for understanding the medico-legal assessment of lunacy in a certain

Since its construction in Classical times, the meaning of ‘paranoia’ has changed at least three times. Important gaps still interrupt its long chronology, and more studies of specific clinical and cultural usages are needed before its total history is put together.

This is the first of two articles analysing the importance of J.J. Moreau de Tours’ work and its influence on the development of descriptive psychopathology from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Part 1 focuses on biographical aspects and presents Moreau’s main works in their social and cultural context, with special emphasis on his book Du Hachisch et de l’Aliénation mentale, published in

After falling into mental illness as a young man, the British artist Richard Dadd (1817–86) spent some 20 years as a patient at Bethlem Hospital in London. A rare example of his writings from these years survives in the form of marginalia in a copy of Lectures on Painting and Design by Benjamin Robert Haydon, held in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. This article presents a transcription of

In the late 1930s, when colonial psychiatry was well established in the Maghreb, the diagnosis ‘psychosis of civilization’ appeared in some psychiatrists’ writings. Through the clinical case of a Libyan woman treated by the Italian psychiatrist Angelo Bravi in Tripoli, this article explores its emergence and its specificity in a differential approach, and highlights its main characteristics. The term

Physicians and surgeons during the nineteenth century were eager to explore the causes of stomach and intestinal illnesses. Theories abounded that there was a sympathy between the mind and the body, especially in the case of the dyspepsia. The body was thought to have physical symptoms from the reactions of the mind, especially in the case of hypochondriasis. Digestive problems had a mental component

This paper explores the historical developments of admission registers of psychiatric asylums and hospitals in England and Wales between 1845 and 1950, with illustrative examples (principally from the archives of the Rainhill Asylum, UK). Standardized admission registers have been mandatory elements of the mental health legislative framework since 1845, and procedural changes illustrate the development

This article offers a brief history and the evolution of mental health policy in Turkey. It aims to analyse how mental health policies were transformed and why certain policies were introduced at specific times. The modern history of mental health policy is divided into three periods: the institutionalization of psychiatry and hospital-based mental health services; the introduction of community-based

The nineteenth century witnessed a great shift in how insanity was regarded and treated. Well documented is the emergence of psychiatry as a medical specialization and the role of lunatic asylums in the West. Unclear are the relationships between the heads of institutions and the individuals treated within them. This article uses two cases at either end of the nineteenth century to demonstrate sexual

The article constitutes a widely researched account of mental patients and their perceptions in the early history of Israel, especially its second decade. It focuses on a single generation, which experienced the traumas of war in Europe, followed by insecurity in Israel’s struggle for independence. The article claims that in the 1960s many suffered from depression, reflected in a record number of patients

The profession of occupational therapy was formalized in the USA in 1917. Many of its earliest proponents were psychiatrists, yet their role in the development of the profession has received limited attention. This paper addresses this gap by considering one of the earliest Irish psychiatrist patrons of occupational therapy: Dr Eamon O’Sullivan (1897–1966) of Killarney Mental Hospital, Co Kerry, who

This article discusses the Admission and Treatment Unit at Fair Mile Hospital, in Cholsey, near Wallingford, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). This was the first new hospital to be completed in England following the launch of the National Health Service. The building was designed by Powell and Moya, one of the most important post-war English architectural practices, and was completed in 1956, but demolished

The American Civil War resulted in massive numbers of injured and ill soldiers. Throughout the conflict, medical doctors relied on opium to treat these conditions, giving rise to claims that the injudicious use of the narcotic caused America’s post-bellum opium crisis. Similar claims of medical misuse of opioids are now made as America confronts the modern narcotic crisis. A more nuanced thesis based

Historians have examined the role of psychiatric institutions in the USA and addressed whether this form of care helped or harmed patients (depending on the perspective of the time period, historical actors, and historians). But the story for children’s mental institutions was different. At the time when adult institutions were in decline, children’s mental hospitals were expanding. Parents and advocates

assertions – as when they cite Theresa of Avila’s ‘hysterical’ attacks as evidence of catatonia when she was a Carmelite novitiate, without including a discussion of the broader cultural tropes associated with religious mysticism in sixteenth-century Spain. Alongside these brief lapses in cultural context, the text is also let down by periodic trips into nostalgia for a period when ‘things used to

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

A conceptual evolution is traceable from early modern classifications of libido nefanda (execrable lust) to early nineteenth-century allusions to ‘perversion of the sexual instinct’, via pluralizing notions of coitus nefandus/sodomiticus in Martin Schurig’s work, and of sodomia impropria in seventeenth- through late eighteenth-century legal medicine. Johann Valentin Müller’s early breakdown of various

Although contemporary approaches to schizophrenia pinpoint 'disturbances of the self' as a central aetiological factor, historical insight into the link between accounts of schizophrenia and theories of subjectivity and self-consciousness is poor. This paper aims to overcome this gap by providing the outlines of a largely forgotten but crucial part of the intellectual history of schizophrenia. In particular

The literature of the past has included self-reports by the mentally ill since before Roy Porter reminded us that their views and experiences constitute an important document for historians of psychiatry. The value of these self-reports can be enhanced if their potential biases and informational power are duly determined. This Classic Text concerns a self-report of a form of periodic madness written

In 1894, the German scholar Edmund Parish published his classic work Über die Trugwahrnehmung, with an expanded English edition called Hallucinations and Illusions appearing in 1897. Both versions won critical acclaim from celebrities such as Joseph Jastrow and William James, although, curiously, few others seemed to have noticed the book. After two more publications, Parish inexplicably stopped publishing

This article explores the antagonism between Sigmund Freud and the German neurologist and sexologist Albert Moll. When Moll, in 1908, published a book about the sexuality of children, Freud, without any grounds, accused him of plagiarism. In fact, Moll had reason to suspect Freud of plagiarism since there are many parallels between Freud’s Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie and Moll’s Untersuchungen

This paper is the second of two to explore historical concepts of causation in psychiatry. Psychogenesis (as opposed to organogenesis) is superficially attractive but ambiguous, as it can apply either to something that is produced by the psyche or alternatively to the effect on the psyche from external factors. The term endogenous may be contrasted to exogenous or reactive, but the meanings of each

This article addresses the implementation of malaria fever therapy in Spain. Neuropsychiatrist Rodríguez-Lafora first used it in 1924, but Vallejo-Nágera was the main advocate for the technique. He had learned the method from Wagner von Jauregg himself, and he worked in the Military Psychiatric Clinic and the San José Mental Hospital, both in Ciempozuelos (Madrid). Vallejo-Nágera worked with the parasitologist

In the early 1960s, a climate of public condemnation of electroconvulsive therapy was emerging in the USA and Europe. In spite of this, the electroshock apparatus prototype, introduced in Rome in 1938, was becoming hotly contended. This article explores the disputes around the display of the electroshock apparatus prototype in the summer of 1964 and sheds new light on the triangle of personalities

The present article reports on the life and work of a protagonist of the concept of reflexology. While the concept itself has its roots in Russia, in Ivan Petrovich Pavlov’s research on conditioned reflexes, and was then shaped to a large extent by Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev, the contributions of Naum Efimovich Ischlondsky (Ishlondsky) have been largely forgotten. Moreover, he developed this concept

During the first half of the twentieth century, German psychiatry came to consider ‘Ich-Störungen’, best translated as self-disorders, to be important features of schizophrenia. The present text is a translation of a chapter by the German psychiatrist Hans Gruhle, which is extraordinarily clear and emblematic for this research line. Published in 1929, it was part of a book co-written with Josef Berze

Michel Foucault remains one of the most influential intellectuals in the early twenty-first century world. This paper examines the origins and impact of his first major work, Folie et déraison, on the history of psychiatry, particularly though not exclusively in the world of Anglo-American scholarship. The impact and limits of Foucault’s work on the author’s own contributions to the history of psychiatry

The British Mandate in Palestine ended abruptly in 1948. The British departure engendered a complex situation which affected all areas of life, and the country’s health system was no exception. Gradual transition of the infrastructure was almost impossible owing to the ineffectiveness of the committee appointed by the United Nations. The situation was further complicated by the outbreak of the Arab–Israeli

Ancient Greece was unique in its attitude to alteration of consciousness. Various altered states of consciousness were commonly known: initiates experienced them during mystery rites; sacred officials and enquirers attained them in the major oracular centres; possession by various deities was recognized; and some sages and philosophers practised manipulation of consciousness. From the perspective of

The question of causation in psychiatry is one of the oldest and most difficult in this field. This paper is the first of two published in this journal. First, it traces the development of psychogenic and organogenic views of mental disorders from Pinel until the early twentieth century. This includes the debate as to how a disturbance of function might create a lesion even without a visible pathological

The fate of Jewish psychiatric patients in occupied Europe during World War II is inseparable from the fate of the disabled and mentally ill, as planned by the Nazi regime. But Jews found themselves at the confluence of eugenics, Christian anti-Judaism and Nazi racist and anti-Semitic madness. They faced the twin promise of death – both as Jews and as mentally ill. They did not escape from the euthanasia

‘hypnosis’, frequently merged with ‘massage and cutaneous electrotherapy’, and thus before the advent of psychoanalysis (p. 128). Addressing the interior decoration of the consulting room as expressive of the analyst’s ethics, Chapter Eight contrasts the ‘archaeological’ preoccupation of Freud’s ‘antiquities’-filled room (p. 144) and the present-day analyst’s predilection for ‘self-erasure’ through

Previous historiography has already paid particular attention to well-known ‘metropolitan’ biographies of I. Balinsky, V. Bekhterev and others, as well as their role in the establishment of a scientific approach in the treatment of mental illnesses in the Russian Empire. Little attention has been paid to ‘provincial’ physicians and the importance of their scientific activity in bridging the gap between

Nineteenth-century art historian John Addington Symonds coined the term hæmatomania (blood madness) for the extremely bloodthirsty behaviour of a number of disturbed rulers like Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya (850–902) and Ezzelino da Romano (1194–1259). According to Symonds, this mental pathology was linked to melancholy and caused by an excess of black bile. I explore the historical credibility of this theory

Harry Harlow, famous for his experiments with rhesus monkeys and cloth and wire mothers, was visited by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby and by child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in 1958...

During the winter of 1930, Princess Alice of Battenberg was admitted to Kurhaus Schloß Tegel, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenic paranoia. When Freud was consulted about her case by Ernst Simmel, the Sanatorium’s Director, he recommended that the patient’s ovaries be exposed to high-intensity X-rays. Freud’s suggestion was not based on any psychoanalytic treatment principles, but rooted in

After many years of disregard, the use of psychedelic drugs in psychiatric treatment has re-emerged in recent years. The prospect that psychedelics may again be integrated into mainstream psychiatry has aroused interest in long-forgotten research and experience from the previous phase of psychedelic therapy, which lasted from the late 1940s to the 1970s. This article will discuss one large-scale psychedelic

There is a long conceptual tradition that interprets phenomena such as clairvoyance and apparitions as evidence for a spiritual component in human beings. Examples of this appear in the literatures of mesmerism, Spiritualism and psychical research. The purpose of this Classic Text is to present excerpts from a book by French astronomer Camille Flammarion touching on this perspective. They are selected

This short note reports the eighteenth-century account of Mademoiselle Lapaneterie, a French woman who started drinking vinegar to lose weight and died one month later. The case, which was first published by Pierre Desault in 1733, has not yet been reported by present-day behavioural scholars. Similar reports about cases in 1776 are also presented, confirming that some women were using vinegar for

During World War I, Martin Pappenheim, as a young doctor in the field of neurology and psychiatry, studied various possible consequences of war traumas, perhaps as part of a wider project of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy’s army. He visited military hospitals, sanatoriums and prisons, and between February and June 1916, while residing in Terezin, he had several opportunities to talk with Gavrilo Princip

In early modern Scotland, several visionaries experienced vivid relationships with spirits. This paper analyses their experiences historically, with the aid of modern scholarship in medicine, psychology and social science. Most of the visionaries were women. Most of their spirit-guides were fairies or ghosts. There could be traumas in forming or maintaining the relationship, and visionaries often experienced

As the first state hospital in the USA, the Worcester State Hospital for the Insane at Worcester, Massachusetts (est. 1833), set a precedent for asylum design and administration that would be replicated across the country. Because the senses were believed to provide a direct conduit into a person’s mental state, the intended therapeutic force of the Worcester State Hospital resided in its particular

Madness can manifest itself in the form of excessive happiness; the patient laughs, plays and dances incessantly night and day, at times he walks around enwreathed in the belief that he has won a sports competition. Insane people like that are harmless towards their surroundings. Worse are those maniacals, who abandon themselves to violent outbursts of anger, rip their clothes and, at times, even kill

Leonhard Schwartz’s importance in the history of psychology has probably not been fully appreciated, and this article is dedicated to the life and work of the Basel neurologist. It highlights the triangular relationship he maintained for 20 years with Pierre Janet, of whom he was a disciple, and Henri F. Ellenberger, to whom he passed on his passion for Janet’s oeuvre.

The Viennese psychiatrist and philosopher Rudolf Allers (1883–1963) made important contributions to psychiatry and psychotherapy, fundamentally in relation to their anthropological foundations from a Catholic point of view. However, Allers’ thought has received rather limited attention from historians of psychiatry. The present study focuses on his conception of neurosis as a metaphysical conflict

Ovarian resection as a treatment for hysteria, called ‘Battey’s operation’ or ‘normal ovariotomy’, was performed in the nineteenth century. Battey later reported that the resected ovaries appeared to have ‘cystic degeneration’. Currently, patients with acute neuropsychiatric symptoms are screened for teratomas for the differential diagnosis of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. There is now a hypothesis