HIST 3640 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Tic, Retrospective Diagnosis, Constipation
30 Jan 2017
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Standardization of labels and classificatory systems across asylums: another attempt to make asylum a research sight. Main diagnostic categories (since before 19th century: melancholy, mania, phrenitis (inflammation of the brain, delirium. Emergence in 19th century of new categories for patients that did not fit into these categories: hebephrenia laughing with no reason, catatonia sitting motionless for days on end, paranoia worrying about imaginary enemies. To be in an asylum required a legal declaration of insanity by a medical practitioner. General practitioners often admitted them, not necessarily asylum superintendents. What was the point of medical certification: avoiding wrongful confinement, huge fear of people, assert professional authority, make it a medical exercise. Shifted authority of who gets to choose who is insane from the family to medicine. Most ad(cid:373)itted (cid:449)ere e(cid:454)perie(cid:374)(cid:272)i(cid:374)g e(cid:454)tre(cid:373)e (cid:271)eha(cid:448)iour, (cid:374)o lo(cid:374)ger people (cid:449)ho (cid:449)ere just (cid:858)odd(cid:859: often a last resort, something to be avoided, many felt sorrow and regret when having to request admitting family members.
