Slijkhuis Jessica, Oosterhuis Harry
Koraal Consulting, Heerlenerweg 10, 6132 CM Sittard, The Netherlands. Email:
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University - History, PO 616 Maastricht, 6200 MD, The Netherlands.
J Hist Med Allied Sci. 2014 Jul;69(3):426-60. doi: 10.1093/jhmas/jrs062. Epub 2012 Oct 10.
This article explores the approach of dementia paralytica by psychiatrists in the Netherlands between 1870 and 1920 against the background of international developments. The psychiatric interpretation of this mental and neurological disorder varied depending on the institutional and social context in which it was examined, treated, and discussed by physicians. Psychiatric diagnoses and understandings of this disease had in part a social-cultural basis and can be best explained against the backdrop of the establishment of psychiatry as a medical specialty and the specific efforts of Dutch psychiatrists to expand their professional domain. After addressing dementia paralytica as a disease and why it drew so much attention in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this essay discusses how psychiatrists understood dementia paralytica in asylum practice in terms of diagnosis, care, and treatment. Next we consider their pathological-anatomical study of the physical causes of the disease and the public debate on its prevalence and causes.
本文探讨了1870年至1920年间荷兰精神病医生在国际发展背景下对麻痹性痴呆的治疗方法。这种精神和神经疾病的精神病学解释因医生对其进行检查、治疗和讨论的机构及社会背景而异。对这种疾病的精神病学诊断和理解部分具有社会文化基础，并且在精神病学作为一门医学专业确立的背景以及荷兰精神病医生为扩大其专业领域所做的具体努力的背景下，能得到最好的解释。在将麻痹性痴呆作为一种疾病以及为何它在19世纪末20世纪初引起如此多关注进行阐述之后，本文讨论了精神病医生在精神病院实践中如何从诊断、护理和治疗方面理解麻痹性痴呆。接下来，我们考虑他们对该疾病物理病因的病理解剖学研究以及关于其发病率和病因的公开辩论。
