Phrenitis and the Pathology of the Mind in Western Medical Thought
<i>Phrenitis</i> and the Pathology of the Mind in Western Medical Thought
£115.00
GBPPhrenitis is ubiquitous in ancient medicine and philosophy. Galen mentions the disease innumerable times, patristic authors take it as a favourite allegory of human flaws, and no ancient doctor fails to diagnose it and attempt its cure. Yet the nature of this once famous disease has not been understood properly by scholars. This book provides the first full history of phrenitis. In doing so, it surveys ancient ideas about the interactions between body and soul, both in health and in disease. It also addresses ancient ideas about bodily health, mental soundness and moral 'goodness', and their heritage in contemporary psychiatric ideas. Readers will encounter an exciting narrative about health, illness and care as embedded in ancient 'life', but will also be forced to reflect critically on our contemporary ideas of what it means to be 'insane'. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
- Reveals the fascinating history of a little understood disease with a long history
- Prompts the reader to think critically about current ideas on illness and human behaviour, as well as about mental health versus disorder, and the shifting interlacement between the concepts of 'madness' and 'badness'
- This book is also available open access
Reviews & endorsements
'A comprehensive account of the history of the concept of phrenitis has long been awaited. This monograph by Chiara Thumiger, a leading expert in the study of the history of mental health and illness, admirably fills this major gap.' Philip van der Eijk, Humboldt University Berlin
'Chiara Thumiger's monumental study of phrenitis is not only an astonishingly erudite and refreshingly sophisticated guide to the ancient, post-classical, and even modern evidence for this perplexing, obsolete, but central medical term for mental illness. It never forgets the human patients, in their distress and anxiety, and the human doctors who do their best to understand and help them.' Glenn Most, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, and University of Chicago
'Chiara Thumiger's extraordinary book examines the history of the disease phrenitis from the fifth century BCE to its progressive disappearance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries CE. Its longue-durée approach and its breadth bring to mind Owsei Temkin's The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology. The work draws upon a huge array of sources, both medical and non-medical, and deals sympathetically with the suffering of humans and non-human animals.' Laurence Totelin, Cardiff University
Product details
November 2023Hardback
9781009241328
448 pages
235 × 155 × 25 mm
0.851kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Preface and methodological issues
- 2. Phrenitis in Classical (5th–4th century BCE) and Hellenistic (3rd–1st century BCE) medicine
- 3. Psychology and delocalising themes. Asclepiades, Celsus and Caelius Aurelianus
- 4. Theoretical aspects of Imperial nosology: localization, semiotics, chronology, etiology (1st–6th century CE)
- 5. Phrenitic people: patients and therapies in Imperial-age and Late-antique cultures (1st–6th century CE)
- 6. Quasi phreneticus: phrenitis in non-medical sources in Imperial-age and Late-antique cultures (1st century BCE–7th century CE)
- 7. The Byzantine and medieval periods: medical receptions of phrenitis in Greek, Latin and Semitic languages (6th–14th century CE)
- 8. The construction of the phrenitic in larger society: from the medieval to the Early-modern period
- 9. Phrenitis in the modern and Early-modern worlds: anatomy, pathology and the survival of Graeco-Roman medicine (16th–19th century CE)
- 10. The modern age: the 'death' of phrenitis.
