Andrew Hodgkiss

From Lesion to Metaphor

Chronic Pain in British, French and German Medical Writings, 1800-1914.

Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA 2000. XII,218 pp. (Clio Medica 58/The Wellcome

Institute Series in the History of Medicine)

ISBN: 90-420-0831-8 Bound Hfl. 120,-/US-$ 51.-

ISBN: 90-420-0821-0 Paper Hfl. 40,-/US-$ 17.-

Most non-malignant chronic pain is medically unexplained. But that has not

stopped doctors from trying. These improvisations at the limit of medical

knowledge offer a way into the history of neurosis.

Lesionless pain was a paradigmatic problem of clinical method after 1800. It

was central to the emergence of neuralgia, spinal irritation, surgical

hysteria, railway spine and hysterical conversion. Evidence of a

nineteenth-century tradition of theoretical discussion about the

relationship between chronic pain and pathological lesion, trauma, mood,

memory and personality is brought together here for the first time. A wide

range of medical texts is surveyed, including pathology, surgery,

physiology, neurology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis. We see the medical

gaze first penetrate the tissues of the body then extend to examine the

language and mental state of the pain patient.

This history of chronic pain should be of interest to medical historians,

pain clinicians, liaison psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and

psychotherapists.

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Just a short note to tell you that Volume 58

Clio Medica/The Wellcome Institute Series in the History of Medicine, a

journal from Rodopi

is now available online via the CatchWord service, and contains the

following articles:

Abstract

Andrew Hodgkiss

Acknowledgements

Andrew Hodgkiss

Introduction

Andrew Hodgkiss

Secondary Literature Review and Methodological Remarks

Andrew Hodgkiss

The Birth of a Problem: 1. The Eighteenth-century Background: Sensibility,

Sympathy & Nervous Diseases 1750 - 1800

Andrew Hodgkiss

A Local Irritation: Pain Without Lesion in the writings of French and

British Physicians and Surgeons: 1820 - 1840

Andrew Hodgkiss

Gemeingefuhl: German Romanticism, Cenesthesis and Subjective Pain: 1794 -

1846

Andrew Hodgkiss

Reflexion and Depression: Pain Without Lesion in mid-century German and

British 'Neurological' and 'Psychiatric' Writings: 1840 - 55

Andrew Hodgkiss

Functional Nervous Disorders in French and British Medical Texts: 1859 -

1871

Andrew Hodgkiss

Functional Nervous Disorders in French and British Medical Writings: 1866 -

1886

Andrew Hodgkiss

Psychalgia and Conversion: Pain Without Lesion in late nineteenth-century

Psychiatric and Psychoanalytic Writings: 1872 - 1895

Andrew Hodgkiss

Pain as Psychopathology in early twentieth-century French and German

Psychiatric Writings: 1900 - 1914

Andrew Hodgkiss

Conclusions

Andrew Hodgkiss

Bibliography

Andrew Hodgkiss

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