Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T13:55:08.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The birth and death of a diagnosis: monomania in France, Britain and in Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2014

Dermot Walsh
Dermot Walsh*
Affiliation:
Health Research Board, Knockmaun House, Lower Mount Street, Dublin 2, Ireland
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr. D. Walsh, Health Research Board, Knockmaun House, Lower Mount Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Objective

The purpose of this paper is to trace the origins and decline of the diagnostic entity monomania, which became prevalent in the early 19th century and to investigate its use in Irish psychiatry.

Method

The French psychiatric scientific writings of the early 19th century have been surveyed to identify and describe the clinical entity of monomania. The clinical description of monomania has been investigated and its cultural diffusion through literature and the arts has been reviewed. The increase in its use as a diagnosis and its ultimate decline has been documented in France, Britain and Ireland. The clinical characteristics leading to the diagnosis in Ireland have been investigated through the clinical symptoms recorded in patients accorded this diagnosis in the 19th century case books and committal documentation of the Richmond District Asylum and case books of the Central Mental Hospital.

Findings

The diagnostic entity of monomania first emerged in France in the 1820s and had disappeared from use in the hospitals of Paris by 1870. It first appeared in Ireland in the patients’ admission register of the Richmond District Asylum in 1833 and increased substantially before decreasing just as markedly with the last patient, given the diagnosis on admission being in 1878. However, the diagnosis of monomania was applied to admissions to the Central Mental Hospital as late as 1891. The Irish asylum case books have been of limited value in elucidating the clinical and symptomatological presentations leading to its use by 19th century Irish psychiatrists.

Conclusions

Monomania, although enjoying a scientific and cultural success in France, both within and without psychiatric circles, was a tenuous clinical entity with an ill-defined and uncertain core and fragile boundaries, both in France and more particularly in Ireland. In pure form, rarely described, its closest modern equivalent would have been delusional disorder, but case descriptions only occasionally correspond to this concept as it is understood today. Its popularity dating from around 1830 declined and by the 1870s it was in terminal decline. The factors delineating its rise and fall are unclear.

Keywords

extinctionmonomaniaorigins
Type
Historical Paper
Information
Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 39 - 45
Copyright
© College of Psychiatrists of Ireland 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References The translation and interpretation of the original or reprinted French texts are mine.

Arlidge, JT (1863). Foreign psychiatric literature. Journal of Mental Science 8, 556–589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, N (2010). Theodore Gericault. Phaidon Press: London.Google Scholar
Delteil, L (1925). Le Peintre- Graveur Illustre, vol. 20, Plate 44. Chez l’auteur: Paris.Google Scholar
Eighth Report (1857). Eighth Report on the District, Criminal and Private Lunatic Asylums in Ireland. Appendix C number 9, p. 44. Alex Thom, Dublin.Google Scholar
Eleventh Report (1862). Eleventh Report on the District, Criminal and Private Asylums in Ireland. Appendix B number 8, p. 42. Alexander Thom, Dublin.Google Scholar
Esquirol., E (1838). Des Maladies Mentales. Tome Premier p. 22. J-B Baiiliere: Paris.Google Scholar
Extra (2010). British Journal of Psychiatry. Shirley Hall Asylum or the Memoirs of a Monomaniac by William Gilbert.Google Scholar
Falret, J-P (1854). De la non-exisrtence de la monomanie in des maladies mentales et des asile d’aleines (1864). J-B Bailliere: Paris.Google Scholar
Fehlman, M (2006). Gericault. La Folie d'un Monde. Nineteenth-Century Art World Wide. Editions Hazan. Paris.Google Scholar
Georget, E (1820). De la folie. Crevot. Paris. Republished by Jasques Postel.L’Harmattan. Paris 1999.Google Scholar
Georget, E (1825). Examen des process criminels de Leger, Lescouffe, Feldtmann et Papavoine, dans lesquels l’alientation mentale a ete invoquee comme moyen de defense; suivi de considerations medico-legales sur la liberte morale, vol. 1, p. 132. Migneret: Paris.Google Scholar
Georget, E (1826). Discussion medico-legale sur la folie ou alientation mentale, suivie de l’examen du process criminel. Henriette Vornier et de plusieurs autres process dans lesquels cette maladie a ete allequee comme moyen de defense, vol. 1, p. 176. Migneret: Paris.Google Scholar
Goldstein, J (2001). Console and Classify. The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth Century, p. 143. University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London.Google Scholar
McEvansoneya, P (2008). The exhibition in Dublin of Gericault’s “Raft of the Medusa”. The Burlington Magazine 1262, 325–326.Google Scholar
Morison, A (1838). The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases. Monomania, pp. 47–64, and plates X1V-XX! Longman and Co. and S Highley: London.Google Scholar
Morison, A (1843). The Physiognomy of Mental Disorder, 2nd edn, pp. 1–3. Longman and Co: London.Google Scholar
Munro, H (1856). On the nomenclature of the various forms of insanity. Asylum Journal 2, 285–305.Google Scholar
Nineteenth Report (1870). Nineteenth Report on the District, Criminal and Private Lunatic Asylums in Ireland. Appendix C, number 8, p. 75. Alexander Thom, Dublin.Google Scholar
Tenth Report (1861). Tenth Report on the District, Criminal and Private Lunatic Asylums in Ireland. Appendix B, number 8, p. 34. Alex Thom & Sons, Dublin.Google Scholar
Thirty First Report (1882). Thirty First Report on the District, Criminal and Private Lunatic Asylums in Ireland. Appendix B, number 5, p. 31. Alex Thom, Dublin.Google Scholar
Tuke, H (1861). The classification of insanity. Journal of Mental Science 7, 286–298.Google Scholar
Tuke, H (1867). On monomania and its relation to civil and criminal law. Journal of Mental Science 13, 306–314.Google Scholar
Twenty Fifth Report (1876). Twenty Fifth Report on the District, Criminal and Private Lunatic Asylums in Ireland. Appendix E, number 8, p. 66. Alex Thom, Dublin.Google Scholar
Twenty Ninth Report (1880). Twenty Ninth Report on the District, Criminal and Private Lunatic Asylums in Ireland. Appendix C, number 7, p. 53. Alex Thom, Dublin.Google Scholar