Letters containing medical data are not simple texts. They stem from a writing process which sees the authors constantly review the way they perceive both their bodies and the way they write. In order to limit the relativism inherent to such processes and reduce the ensuing variability of perspectives, most letter writers eventually assume a form of authority. In the second part of the 18th Century, the correspondence between the abbey Galliano and Mme D'Epinay reveals that while they exchanged details about their health, they also experimented with different positions of authority and adapted their writing process as the relationship evolved. This a salutary lesson for modern researchers who are often tempted to reduce the problematic meaning of the letter writing process, defining the letter as an isolated document. Medical correspondence is exemplary in this respect because it requires a certain level of knowledge and the expression of a certain intimacy, entailing the adoption of one or of several forms of authority.
{"title":"[Medical discourse and poetical practice: the different figures of authority within the correspondance between Mme d'Epinay and the abbé Galiani].","authors":"Renaud Redien-Collot","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Letters containing medical data are not simple texts. They stem from a writing process which sees the authors constantly review the way they perceive both their bodies and the way they write. In order to limit the relativism inherent to such processes and reduce the ensuing variability of perspectives, most letter writers eventually assume a form of authority. In the second part of the 18th Century, the correspondence between the abbey Galliano and Mme D'Epinay reveals that while they exchanged details about their health, they also experimented with different positions of authority and adapted their writing process as the relationship evolved. This a salutary lesson for modern researchers who are often tempted to reduce the problematic meaning of the letter writing process, defining the letter as an isolated document. Medical correspondence is exemplary in this respect because it requires a certain level of knowledge and the expression of a certain intimacy, entailing the adoption of one or of several forms of authority.</p>","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"29 ","pages":"95-109, 264"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27333925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Historians usually consult letters by artists in order to verify and to interpret works of art. These letters contain basic information about technical, social and psychological aspects. As personal documents, they have always enjoyed a particular esteem among biographers and collectors. On the other hand, historians have often suggested that artists are the melancholic outcasts of society. But even a brief glance at the available correspondence proves that the majority of letters do not support this diagnosis. When artists mention their own physical constitution, they apologise for delays or request further financial support. Moreover, the letter is subject to literary codes according to which medical issues are adopted as a metaphor for more general problems. The French classical painter Nicolas Poussin, on whom the present analysis is based, displayed a particular interest in questions of style and literacy. His writings should then be regarded as complex "compositions" that stand comparison with his artistic oeuvre rather than mere informal messages to his readers. Indeed, correspondences between artists and their patrons, colleagues and friends form a "genre" in their own right that can be drawn upon as a reliable source for research in medical history.
{"title":"[Clinical pictures. The body of the early modern artist].","authors":"Matthias Bruhn","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Historians usually consult letters by artists in order to verify and to interpret works of art. These letters contain basic information about technical, social and psychological aspects. As personal documents, they have always enjoyed a particular esteem among biographers and collectors. On the other hand, historians have often suggested that artists are the melancholic outcasts of society. But even a brief glance at the available correspondence proves that the majority of letters do not support this diagnosis. When artists mention their own physical constitution, they apologise for delays or request further financial support. Moreover, the letter is subject to literary codes according to which medical issues are adopted as a metaphor for more general problems. The French classical painter Nicolas Poussin, on whom the present analysis is based, displayed a particular interest in questions of style and literacy. His writings should then be regarded as complex \"compositions\" that stand comparison with his artistic oeuvre rather than mere informal messages to his readers. Indeed, correspondences between artists and their patrons, colleagues and friends form a \"genre\" in their own right that can be drawn upon as a reliable source for research in medical history.</p>","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"29 ","pages":"79-94, 259"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27333924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Current research shows that men generally have a lower awareness of health and health prevention than women. However, differences in illness behaviour can be observed in terms of how to deal with diseases, in the awareness of complaints and in the use of physicians. In this chapter, private correspondences of men from different social classes (aristocrats, scientists, artisans and journeymen) are presented for the period between 1800 and 1950. The questions addressed are the following: What expectations do men have from medicine and how do they experience treatment given by doctors? What actions do they perceive as dangerous for their health and how do they handle them? The health strategies of men are closely linked to the respective concepts of masculinity in different historical epochs. The point in this investigation is to reveal that the experiences of illness and of health are composed of individual as well as of social components: both reflect the history, situation and way of living of one specific person.
{"title":"[Health behaviour of men. Health and illness in private letters, 1800-1900].","authors":"Susanne Frank","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Current research shows that men generally have a lower awareness of health and health prevention than women. However, differences in illness behaviour can be observed in terms of how to deal with diseases, in the awareness of complaints and in the use of physicians. In this chapter, private correspondences of men from different social classes (aristocrats, scientists, artisans and journeymen) are presented for the period between 1800 and 1950. The questions addressed are the following: What expectations do men have from medicine and how do they experience treatment given by doctors? What actions do they perceive as dangerous for their health and how do they handle them? The health strategies of men are closely linked to the respective concepts of masculinity in different historical epochs. The point in this investigation is to reveal that the experiences of illness and of health are composed of individual as well as of social components: both reflect the history, situation and way of living of one specific person.</p>","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"29 ","pages":"223-34, 261"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27332662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The consultation letters of Lorenz Heister enable a specific patient-focused analysis. Heister was not only a famous physician of the early German Enlightenment, but a renowned surgeon as well. His double expertise gives his correspondence a unique character. The consultation letters addressed to him testify not only the well known phenomenon of "medicine-by-post", but also the less well known practice of "surgery-by-post". They allow us some insight into the different sensations and strategies of people who suffered from a malady which could call for surgical treatment. Patients' letters enable historians to compare the expression of fears, hopes and actions with those of their fellow-patients who sought in Heister not the surgeon, but the physician. Such a comparative approach suggests a series of issues, of which two are discussed here: representations of the patient's history of suffering (Patientenweg, and representations of the patient's body (Patientenkörper).
{"title":"[Surgery in letters. The example of Lorenz Heister's epistolary consultation].","authors":"Marion Maria Ruisinger","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The consultation letters of Lorenz Heister enable a specific patient-focused analysis. Heister was not only a famous physician of the early German Enlightenment, but a renowned surgeon as well. His double expertise gives his correspondence a unique character. The consultation letters addressed to him testify not only the well known phenomenon of \"medicine-by-post\", but also the less well known practice of \"surgery-by-post\". They allow us some insight into the different sensations and strategies of people who suffered from a malady which could call for surgical treatment. Patients' letters enable historians to compare the expression of fears, hopes and actions with those of their fellow-patients who sought in Heister not the surgeon, but the physician. Such a comparative approach suggests a series of issues, of which two are discussed here: representations of the patient's history of suffering (Patientenweg, and representations of the patient's body (Patientenkörper).</p>","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"29 ","pages":"131-42, 266"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27332655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Based on the letters sent by French patients to Hahnemann and his wife (or written about them), this essay focuses on the behaviour of patients towards treatment rather than on their representations and interpretations of illness and health. Despite the fact that we don't know exactly who the authors of these letters were, it is clear that they all hope to obtain some of Hahnemann's medicines. The well-known demand for medicine at the beginning of the 19th Century was reinforced by the mystery surrounding homeopathic remedies and the specific way they were made available. Relying on theories which lent an important role to the nerves and the patient's character to explain the origins of sickness, patients hoped that Hahnemann and his new doctrine would be able to change both their life and their psychical characteristics. One can conclude that for the authors of such letters, writing about illness could be a means to construct new behaviour patterns and new attitudes towards health and sickness, rather than an illustration of existing medical, social and literary models.
{"title":"[Courses of cure: the case of French patients of Samuel and Melanie Hahnemann (1834-1868)].","authors":"Olivier Faure","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Based on the letters sent by French patients to Hahnemann and his wife (or written about them), this essay focuses on the behaviour of patients towards treatment rather than on their representations and interpretations of illness and health. Despite the fact that we don't know exactly who the authors of these letters were, it is clear that they all hope to obtain some of Hahnemann's medicines. The well-known demand for medicine at the beginning of the 19th Century was reinforced by the mystery surrounding homeopathic remedies and the specific way they were made available. Relying on theories which lent an important role to the nerves and the patient's character to explain the origins of sickness, patients hoped that Hahnemann and his new doctrine would be able to change both their life and their psychical characteristics. One can conclude that for the authors of such letters, writing about illness could be a means to construct new behaviour patterns and new attitudes towards health and sickness, rather than an illustration of existing medical, social and literary models.</p>","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"29 ","pages":"197-210, 260"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27332660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The correspondence of the society "Nature and Medicine" (Fördergemeinschaft "Natur und Medizin") between the years 1992 and 1996 is kept in the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart. It offers the possibility to analyse the common medical culture of patients who have an interest in alternative medicine. After a short characterisation of the society itself, the letters are analysed in respect to the figures of correspondents, that of the addressees, and the reasons voiced by both for writing in the first place. The various experiences of the writers with the medical market are then discussed and the patient's expectations as enounced to the addressee are developed. In short, these documents represent an invaluable source for a social history from the point of view of patients. In particular, they show--beyond the implicit criticism of academic medicine--what meanings and values lay medical culture endorses in everyday life.
“自然与医学”协会(Fördergemeinschaft“Natur und Medizin”)1992年至1996年之间的通信保存在斯图加特罗伯特·博世基金会的医学史研究所。它提供了分析对替代医学感兴趣的患者的共同医学文化的可能性。在对社会本身作了简短的描述之后,我们从写信人、收信人的形象以及双方最初写信的原因等方面对这些信件进行了分析。然后讨论了作者在医疗市场上的各种经验,并发展了病人对收件人的期望。简而言之,从患者的角度来看,这些文件代表了社会史的宝贵资源。尤其值得一提的是,除了对学术医学的含蓄批评之外,它们还展示了医学文化在日常生活中所认可的意义和价值。
{"title":"[\"I would have liked to speak with the physicians about it but they waved me aside ...\"letters to \"Nature and Medicine\" 1992-1996].","authors":"Sylvelyn Hähner-Rombach","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The correspondence of the society \"Nature and Medicine\" (Fördergemeinschaft \"Natur und Medizin\") between the years 1992 and 1996 is kept in the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart. It offers the possibility to analyse the common medical culture of patients who have an interest in alternative medicine. After a short characterisation of the society itself, the letters are analysed in respect to the figures of correspondents, that of the addressees, and the reasons voiced by both for writing in the first place. The various experiences of the writers with the medical market are then discussed and the patient's expectations as enounced to the addressee are developed. In short, these documents represent an invaluable source for a social history from the point of view of patients. In particular, they show--beyond the implicit criticism of academic medicine--what meanings and values lay medical culture endorses in everyday life.</p>","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"29 ","pages":"235-48, 263"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27333718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Consulting by letter was fairly common practice among the educated, upper classes of early modern Europe. Surviving letters of consultation written by patients, relatives or friends count among the most valuable source for the analysis of pre-modern experiences of disease and the body. This essay gives a brief overview of the various types of consultation letters and related documents which resulted from this practice before tracing the historical development of epistolary consultations from the late Middle Ages through the heyday medical correspondence in the 18th c. before its decline in the 19th c. It presents "experience", "self-fashioning" and "discourse" as three particularly fruitful levels of analysis on which patients' letters can be used within the wider framework of a cultural history of medicine. These three levels of analysis, or three distinct approaches, enable historians to access a greater awareness of the ways in which the experience of illness and the body is culturally framed with an analysis of the performative effects of patients' narratives and the influence of medical discourse among the wider society.
{"title":"[Patients' letters and pre-modern medical lay-culture].","authors":"Michael Stolberg","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Consulting by letter was fairly common practice among the educated, upper classes of early modern Europe. Surviving letters of consultation written by patients, relatives or friends count among the most valuable source for the analysis of pre-modern experiences of disease and the body. This essay gives a brief overview of the various types of consultation letters and related documents which resulted from this practice before tracing the historical development of epistolary consultations from the late Middle Ages through the heyday medical correspondence in the 18th c. before its decline in the 19th c. It presents \"experience\", \"self-fashioning\" and \"discourse\" as three particularly fruitful levels of analysis on which patients' letters can be used within the wider framework of a cultural history of medicine. These three levels of analysis, or three distinct approaches, enable historians to access a greater awareness of the ways in which the experience of illness and the body is culturally framed with an analysis of the performative effects of patients' narratives and the influence of medical discourse among the wider society.</p>","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"29 ","pages":"23-33, 267"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27333920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The relationship between hypochondria--a fashionable disease in the late 18th c.--on the one hand and some of the most important social and cultural developments during the same period on the other, are approached through the correspondence of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, merchant, court councilor and author, during a lifetime of residence in Düsseldorf, between 1762 and 1794. Different points are broached in this chapter: The nervous disease called hypochondria fulfilled different functions in the formation of bourgeois ideology, especially regarding the principle of achievement. An effect of autonomy was the main phantasm of the enlightened subject: the body was experienced as an enemy of the most fundamental and almost "holy" grounds of bourgeois social life. Therefore each bodily experience was in itself pathological. The progression of literacy must be seen as one of the most profound changes of the society in the late eighteenth century. Some evidence suggests that this process has an impact on the somatic malfunctions associated with hypochondria.
忧郁症——18世纪晚期的一种流行疾病——一方面与同一时期一些最重要的社会和文化发展之间的关系,通过商人、宫廷顾问和作家弗里德里希·海因里希·雅各比(Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi)在1762年至1794年期间在d sseldorf居住的一生的信件来探讨。疑病症在资产阶级意识形态的形成中发挥了不同的作用,特别是在成就原则方面。自主的影响是开明主体的主要幻觉:身体被视为资产阶级社会生活最基本的、几乎是“神圣”的基础的敌人。因此,每个身体体验本身都是病态的。读写能力的进步必须被看作是18世纪晚期社会最深刻的变化之一。一些证据表明,这一过程对与疑病症相关的躯体功能障碍有影响。
{"title":"[Illness as effect of cultural construction in the enlightenment. The example of hypochondria].","authors":"Carmen Goetz","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The relationship between hypochondria--a fashionable disease in the late 18th c.--on the one hand and some of the most important social and cultural developments during the same period on the other, are approached through the correspondence of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, merchant, court councilor and author, during a lifetime of residence in Düsseldorf, between 1762 and 1794. Different points are broached in this chapter: The nervous disease called hypochondria fulfilled different functions in the formation of bourgeois ideology, especially regarding the principle of achievement. An effect of autonomy was the main phantasm of the enlightened subject: the body was experienced as an enemy of the most fundamental and almost \"holy\" grounds of bourgeois social life. Therefore each bodily experience was in itself pathological. The progression of literacy must be seen as one of the most profound changes of the society in the late eighteenth century. Some evidence suggests that this process has an impact on the somatic malfunctions associated with hypochondria.</p>","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"29 ","pages":"111-22, 262"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27333926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[Dealing with the French disease in early modern Augsburg].","authors":"Claudia Stein","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"19 ","pages":"1-293"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"24028675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"[\"The quack does not strive for truth, he only desires gold\": on the discussion between scientific medicine and popular medicine in Germany as illustrated by hypnosis and magnetic therapy].","authors":"Jens-Uwe Teichler","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81976,"journal":{"name":"Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte. Beiheft : Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung","volume":"18 ","pages":"1-233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"22079542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}