Gayle DAVIS
The Cruel Madness of Love'. Sex, Syphilis andPsychiatry in Scotland, 1880-1930.
Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, coll. "ClioMedica/The Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine" n° 85, 2008, V-285 p.
Isbn 13 (ean):978-90-420-2463-2
Présentation de l'éditeur
Against abackdrop of contemporary social and sexual concerns, and potent fearssurrounding the moral and physical ‘degeneration' of late nineteenth and earlytwentieth-century society, ‘The Cruel Madness of Love' explores a criticalperiod in the developing relationship between syphilis and insanity.
Generalparalysis of the insane (GPI), the most commonly diagnosed of theneurosyphilitic disorders, has been devastating both in terms of its severityand incidence. Using the rich laboratory and asylum records of lowland Scotlandas a case study, Gayle Davis examines the evolution of GPI as a diseasecategory from a variety of perspectives: social, medical, and pathological.
Throughexploring case notes and the impact of new diagnostic techniques and therapies,such as the Wassermann Test and Malarial Therapy, the reader gains a uniqueinsight into both patients and practitioners. Significant insights are gainedinto the socio–sexual background and medical experience of patients, as well asthe clinical ideas and judgmental behaviour of the practitioners confrontingthis disease.
‘The CruelMadness of Love' will be of interest to anyone wishing to explore thehistorical relationship between sexuality, morality and disease.
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Acknowledgements
1Introduction
2 ScottishInstitutional Provision for the Insane
3 ClinicalDiagnosis
4 TheImpact of the Laboratory
5 Treatment
6 Aetiologyand Social Epidemiology
7Conclusions
Appendices
Sources andSelect Bibliography
Index
L'auteur
Gayle Davisis a Wellcome Trust University Award Holder at the University of Edinburgh. She has published on variousaspects of the social history of medicine and sexuality in twentieth-centuryBritain, and is undertaking a Wellcome-funded research project on the historyof infertility in Scotland. She is reviews editor for History of Psychiatry.
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