L'addiction à la morphine à Paris

Art, Medicine, and Femininity. Visualising the Morphine Addict in Paris, 1870–1914

Hannah Halliwell



McGill-Queens' University Press
Part of the Intoxicating Histories (number 0 in series)
240 Pages, 6 x 9
12 colour plates, 38 bw illustrations
ISBN 9780228019909
January 2024


“Paris is the centre of the cult,” wrote Robert Hichens in Felix, his 1902 novel on the rising number of morphine addictions in Europe. In Paris, artists depicted the morphine addict numerous times, yet they disregarded the reality of France’s addiction problem: male medical professionals made up the highest proportion of people who used morphine habitually. In oil paintings, caricatures, and lithographs, artists such as Pablo Picasso, Eugène Grasset, and Théophile Steinlen almost always depicted the morphine addict as a deviant female figure.

Artists sensationalized addiction to elicit shock and stand out in the crowded Parisian art market. Their artworks show influences from contemporary medical texts on addiction and artistic depictions of sex workers, lesbians, and other women deemed socially deviant. These images proliferated in French society, creating false narratives about who was or could become addicted to drugs and setting a precedent for the visualization of drug addiction. Hannah Halliwell links the feminization of addiction to broader anxieties in late nineteenth-century France - the defeat by Prussia in 1871, concerns about social decadence, a declining population, and a rising feminist movement.

Art, Medicine, and Femininity presents a new understanding of the history of addiction and substance use and its intersection with art and gender.

La mort dans l'Antiquité gréco-romaine

A Perfect Death? Historical, Literary, and Philosophical Reflections on Life, Death, and Remembrance in Greco-Roman Antiquity


Call for papers


We are pleased to announce the two-day conference “A Perfect Death? Historical, Literary, and Philosophical Reflections on Life, Death, and Remembrance in Greco-Roman Antiquity”, which will take place in person on 15-16 October 2024 at KU Leuven (Belgium).

We invite scholars and researchers working on Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and ancient philosophy to submit paper proposals exploring the theme of the conference. By fostering an inclusive dialogue across disciplines, this conference seeks to unravel the multifaceted layers of the ancient Greco-Roman view on and approach to the concepts of life, death, and remembrance.


We encourage submissions that examine:

- The socio-cultural aspect of death (e.g., burial rites, mourning rituals) and historical accounts that illuminate the cultural nuances and societal values attached to the manner of one’s demise in antiquity;

- the different ways of dying (e.g., suicide, obligatory death, death by sacrifice) and the value that was attributed to them;

- the literary representations of death in diverse genres;

- the philosophical inquiries into the nature of a well-lived life, the pursuit of virtue, the acceptance of mortality, and the fear of death;

- the perspective of the other (e.g., remembrance) and the literary or cultural legacy one wanted to leave behind;

- other related topics.


Each presentation will last for approximately 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute discussion. Keynote lectures will be offered by Prof. dr. Han Baltussen (University of Adelaide) and Prof. dr. Monica Gale (Trinity College Dublin). There will be no conference fee. We anticipate publishing the conference papers in a collected volume.


Submission guidelines:

- Deadline for submission: February 20, 2024.

- Please send your abstract (as a WORD e-mail attachment; up to 300 words) to Ide François (ide.francois@kuleuven.be) and Wim Nijs (wim.nijs@kuleuven.be) with the subject line: “A Perfect Death – Abstract Submission”. The abstract should be in English, as this will be the communication language of the conference.

- Please include your name, institutional affiliation, and contact details in your email. We welcome submissions from researchers from all career stages and from a variety of disciplinary homes.

Peste, folie et arbres

Pestilence, Insanity, and Trees 

John M. Harris Jr.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (December 1, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 338 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1032603940


This is the first full-length biography of New York surgeon and social activist Stephen Smith (1823–1922), who was appointed to fifty years of public service by three mayors, seven governors, and two U.S. presidents.

The book presents the complex life of Stephen Smith, a consistent figure in the history of public health, mental health, housing reform in New York, and even urban reforestation. Utilizing Smith’s writings, public records, and recently discovered personal correspondence, this research shows how Smith succeeded where others failed. It also acknowledges that Smith was unsuccessful in convincing his fellow professionals to fight for a cabinet level public health department or to resist the rise of custodial care for the mentally impaired. Given Smith’s many accomplishments, the book asks us to consider if what stopped him stops us, highlighting the relevance of Smith’s story to contemporary debates.

Pestilence, Insanity, and Trees is a readable and well-documented narrative and a resource for students and scholars, filling gaps in the history of American medicine, public health, mental health, and New York social reform.

Moment cartésien de la douleur

Histoire de la douleur. Retour sur un moment cartésien.

Conférence de Raphaële Andrault


le vendredi 26 Janvier de 14h à 16h dans la salle de conférences du deuxième étage de l'IHPST(13 rue du four).


Résumé : Dans cette présentation, je partirai des deux histoires de la douleur qui nous sont proposées aujourd’hui : l’histoire neurologique de la nociception, d’un côté, et l’histoire des sensibilités s’attachant à la douleur ressentie, de l’autre. Ces deux récits historiques, pourtant aux antipodes l’un de l’autre, ont comme même point de butée ce que l’on peut appeler le « moment cartésien », associé à l’explication mécaniste neurocérébrale de la brûlure et de la douleur fantôme. Je montrerai les bénéfices d’une description « dans l’épaisseur » de ce moment cartésien. Une telle description permet d’abord d’infirmer le poncif selon lequel le dualisme aurait marginalisé l’expérience de la douleur – celle-ci est cruciale pour la thèse cartésienne de l’absence de ressemblance entre une perception sensorielle et sa cause physique. Cette description permet ensuite de montrer comment deux thèses métaphysiques divergentes peuvent exploiter le même phénomène de la douleur exogène aiguë. 

Séminaire Philbio (Philosophie de la Biologie et de la médecine)

Université Paris 1 Panthéon - Sorbonne, CNRS, ENS

UMR 8590 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques

13, rue du Four - 75006 PARIS

organisé par Agathe du Crest (agathedcdv@gmail.com),

Louis Virenque (louis.virenque@etu.univ-paris1.fr) et Anaïs Lamoureux (anais.lamoureux21@gmail.com)

L’art de la maladie

Art of Illness: Malingering and Inventing Health Conditions

Wendy J. Turner (Editor)



Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (December 1, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 294 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1032589619


There is a long history of inventing illness, such as pretending to be sick for attention or accusing others of being ill. This volume explores the art of illness, and the deceptions and truths around health and bodies, from a multiplicity of angles from antiquity to the present.

The chapters, which are based on primary-source evidence ranging from antiquity to the late twentieth century, are divided into three sections. The first part explores how the idea of faking illness was understood and conceptualized across multiple fields, locations, and time periods. The second part uses case studies to emphasize the human element of those at the center of these narratives and how their behavior was shaped by societal attitudes. The third part investigates the development of regulations and laws governing malingering and malingerers. Altogether, they paint a picture of humans doing human actions―cheating, lying, stealing, but also hiding, surviving, working.

This book’s careful, accessible scholarship is a valuable resource for academics, scientists, and the sophisticated undergraduate audience interested in malingering narratives throughout history.

Une histoire de l'effet nocebo

Is There a History of the Nocebo Effect? Global Reflections


Talk by Dr Rob Boddice
 

Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Research Council Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences, Tampere University, Finland.


28 February 2024

4:00PM - 6:00PM

IMH (Confluence Building) & Online


For further information and registration:

https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medical-humanities/events/imh-seminar-2802-rob-boddice/


Dr Rob Boddice puts the case for a history of the nocebo effect and the power of situated belief to cause real and lasting harm.


Collective trauma has had many names. Mass psychogenic illness, mass sociogenic illness, reactive psychological disaster syndrome, mass hysteria and choreomania are some of them. Outbreaks are documented from ancient times to the present, all around the world, from medieval tarantism and compulsive dancing to eighteenth-century convulsionnaires; from hysterical tetanus outbreaks in the nineteenth century to sudden onset collective Tourettes in the twenty-first. Indicative research suggests that some forms of long-Covid also belong in this category.

What do these collective illnesses have in common? How can historians make sense of the real psychological and bodily experiences of the collectively afflicted in the absence of pathological causes, normatively conceived? In this seminar, Dr Rob Boddice puts the case for a history of the nocebo effect and the power of situated belief to cause real and lasting harm. Based on interdisciplinary medical and neuroscientific research, this is an exploratory venture into the historicity of biocultural plasticity and the dynamics of human experience.


The event is free but registrations are essential. All are welcome!


This seminar is hosted by The Institute for Medical Humanities at Durham University and is delivered as part of the 2023-24 IMH Hidden Experience Seminar Series, which centres on hidden experiences of health and illness.

Histoire de l'accident vasculaire cérébral

History of Stroke

Julien Bogousslavsky, Maurizio Paciaroni, Michael G. Hennerici and Laurent Tatu , Eds.

MDPI Books
Published: December 2023
Pages: 160

Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability and death worldwide. It has become the first disease leading to neurologic referrals to hospital and, while recognized in medicine since antiquity, stroke did not acquire a proper place within neurology until the second part of the 20th century. The main reason for this is that, because it deals with blood vessels and circulation, neurologists themselves did not want to include stroke as a primary disorder of the nervous system. However, this is one of the many reasons the historical development of stroke and cerebrovascular disease is of unique interest; it touches not only on neurology but also on internal medicine, angiology, cardiology, rehabilitation, and psychiatry within the frame of secondary behavioral and personality changes after stroke. For the same reasons, the study of the developments in the field of stroke over time is an excellent mirror of historical developments in medicine in general, encompassing many different domains. It is, thus, rather paradoxical that the last book on the history of stroke was published over thirty years ago (Fields and Lemak’s History of Stroke in 1989). Along with the many new developments in stroke diagnosis, acute management and prevention, a new look at the evolution of stroke concepts over time has become necessary, and this is what the present volume is attempting to accomplish. Since stroke has developed into several different smaller fields, we have organized the book with four editors from different fields who have chosen authors with specific expertise in the corresponding overviewed issues. Our principle goal is to underline how and to follow the paths of these developments over the years. History is not a minor part of medical knowledge. Indeed, history defines what we are and think today and how we will envision and plan the future. This fresh look at history of stroke may also have a significant impact on future advances and research in cerebrovascular disease and stroke.

Poisons et antidotes

Too Complex to Explain? Poisons, Antidotes, and Emergent Properties in the Early Modern Period
 

Talk by Andreas Blank
 

23 January 2024 – 5 PM (CET)

Early modern theories of antidotes (alexipharmaca) revolved around three central, interrelated questions:
1. Do antidotes act upon the organic body affected by poisons or do they act upon the poisonous substances themselves (or a combination of both)?
2. Can antidotes be used only in acute cases of poisoning, or do they also have a prophylactic use?
3. Do antidotes act by means of primary qualities, or by means of higher-order qualities that can be reduced to primary qualities, or by means of their whole substance?
The third question leads directly into the controversy between reductionism and emergentism in early modern natural philosophy. Inspired by aspects of Galen’s, Alexander of Aphrodisias’ and Philoponus’ writings, sixteenth-century natural philosophers such as Jacob Schegk (1511-1587) maintained that complex composites possess causal powers that cannot be reduced to the combination of the powers of their constituents.
Other thinkers such as Thomas Erastus (1524-1583) defended instead reductionist explanations. Such rival explanatory programs were applied to the analysis of the properties of living beings, as well as to the properties of medicaments and poisons–many of which derived from plants and animals.
This lecture will analyze the various types of causation that were believed to be involved in the therapeutic use of antidotes, especially the circle of upward causation (the material conditions of the occurrence of new causal powers) and downward causation (the influence of new causal powers on the material foundations from which they emerged).
And it will ask what the debate about antidotes could contribute to an understanding of early modern conceptions of actions of the whole substance–do these action presuppose the emergence of new substances that function as principles of activity and unity or could they be analyzed alone in the terms of the emergence of new causal powers that confer unity upon the composites that produce them.


To register for this event please follow the link:

https://csmbr.fondazionecomel.org/events/online-lectures/poisons-antidotes-and-emergent-properties/