3 - The concept of neurosis in anatomoclinical medicine before Charcot
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2010
Summary
The anatomoclinical view provided the earliest conceptual foundation of scientificonatural medicine during the nineteenth century. This achievement of the anatomoclinicians Laín Entralgo has called the ‘copernican revolution operated by the concept of anatomopathological lesion’ for the anatomical lesion, until then less important than the symptom, became the very basis of medicine.
A confrontation therefore was inevitable between the new view, based on localization and a reduction to the anatomical level, and the concept of neurosis, related since its inception to general diseases and interpreted physiologically. This confrontation will be explored first in the work of Pinel who presided over the transition between the Enlightenment and the new views; then in relation to the period during which efforts were made to jettison the concept of neurosis culminating with Georget's fundamental revision; finally its evolution will be traced during the zenith of the anatomoclinical view, between Georget and Charcot.
Pinel's work as the starting point of the anatomoclinical view of the neuroses
Paris was the indisputable capital of anatomoclinical medicine during the early nineteenth century. The French revolution and the ensuing sociopolitical climate had done away with all existing medical institutions and brought into being new ones free from the burden of tradition. For about twenty years Philippe Pinel (1745–1826), imbued by the ideal of a new medicine, presided over the transformation. Remembered as one of the founders of psychiatry, it is less known that he also forged the link between the Enlightenment and anatomoclinical pathology.
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- Historical Origins of the Concept of Neurosis , pp. 44 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1983