Abstracts fra Bibliotek for Læger 1/2004

Kommentar: Om slipsemænd, butterflymænd og små piger der bliver kikket i halsen.

Redaktionen

 

Originalartikel: Underordnet eller sideordnet? Kiropraktik som alternativ behandlingsform i Danmark omkring 1930.

Søren Bak-Jensen:

Subordinate or Equal? Chiropractic as alternative treatment in Denmark around 1930.

Bibl Læger 2004; 196: 5–28.

The earliest Danish chiropractors came to Denmark in the years following the First World War. Right from the start, chiropractors were described by Danish medical doctors as quacks and as posing a threat to public safety. Medical doctors and the political majority were of the opinion that the practice of chiropractic should be legal only when it could not harm the health of the population. Chiropractors, however, regarded themselves as a valuable contribution to the science of health care, and they saw themselves as entitled to a position as state authorized health care practitioners. In this article, I take a close look at these two different suggestions for the future status of chiropractors in Denmark in the 1920’s and 30’s. I focus mainly on the debates that took place in the context of the events that lead up to the new medical act in Denmark in 1934. I argue that the two different suggestions for the status of chiropractors can be seen as proposing two different kinds of alternative status for chiropractors. Medical doctors and the political majority regarded chiropractors as alternative in the sense of being counter-cultural and subordinate to medical science. According to this view, chiropractic was not health care at all and could not be expected to contribute to the health of the population. Chiropractors, on the other hand, wanted to become an alternative to medical doctors. They wanted to be just as accessible for patients and to enjoy similar legal privileges as medical doctors. According to chiropractors, chiropractic was a different but equally legitimate and valuable kind of health care, and they demanded that medical legislation took into account the existence of such alternatives to medical treatment. By studying these two contradictory views, I present a view of how profoundly the two suggestions for a status for chiropractors differed

from each other.

 

Oversigtsartikel: Pokker og fransoser. Et kulturhistorisk blik på syfilis i 1500–1600-tallets Danmark.

Rikke Ilsted Kristiansen:

“Pokker” and “fransoser” (French disease).

Bibl Læger 2004; 196: 29–46.

Syphilis is first mentioned in Denmark in the year 1500. The disease occurs only sporadically in the written sources from the 16th and 17^th centuries, mostly under the names “pokker” or “fransoser” (French disease). The only known hospital for the victims of the disease in this period, St. Anne’s Hospital in Copenhagen, was founded by a citizen and was only in function approx. 1516–1530. The treatment of syphilis was in the hands of the barber-surgeons and various self-appointed doctors, but we know little of the actual cures. The authorities do not seem to have reacted to the new disease. There was no legal attempt to isolate the diseased persons from the surrounding society, and not until the end of the 18th century did the authorities establish small hospitals for syphilitics. Apparently the syphilitics were more or less left on their own or to the care of relatives and friends. Syphilis was seen generally as an infectious and disgusting disease, and false accusations of being infected could result in lawsuits. But it seems that the common understanding was that the infected person could be “guilty” as well as “innocent” in his disease, depending on whether the infection was deemed a cause of adultery or not. A married couple could not obtain divorce because of syphilis. By and large, in daily life practices in Denmark in the 16th and 17th centuries, syphilis seems to have been seen as just one of the many diseases, one had the risk of getting.

 

 

Oversigtsartikel: Det 19. århundredes danske psykiatri – en historiografisk oversigt.

Jette Møllerhøj:

19th century Danish psychiatry – a historiographical outline.

Bibl Læger 2004; 196: 47-73.

Although Danish psychiatry and psychiatric practice have been subject to much public interest and controversy, it has only to a limited extent, contrary to American and Western European psychiatry, been subject to historical research. Until now Danish history of psychiatry has primarily been written by psychiatrists themselves. This article reveals principal lines through the stories of 19^th century Danish psychiatry and identifies two major historiographical traditions: A classical history of psychiatry and a revisionist/anti-psychiatric tradition.

The classical history of psychiatry shows many similarities to the Whig medical history through a focus on development and progress. Consequently, psychiatric knowledge and practice of the past are estimated and compared to the knowledge of today’s psychiatry and represented as immature and underdeveloped. At the same time the foundation of psychiatry as an independent branch of medicine and the establishment of asylums for mentally ill are represented as signs of humanity and progress. The revisionist tradition has mistrusted the classical stories about development and humanitarian efforts, and instead emphasised the discipline, labelling and social control of psychiatry. Interestingly, there are remarkable similarities in the ways in which both classical and revisionist traditions have focused on individual psychiatrists, seen psychiatry as an independent branch of medicine and measured the past by contemporary standards. The most significant difference between the two major historiographical traditions seems to be the perception of mental illness. Whereas the classical tradition perceives mental illness as a disease and an objective category, the revisionist tradition conceives of mental illness as a social and cultural construction.

Finally, signs of a new history of psychiatry are discussed. Among a new generation of historians there seem to be sketches of a third way of writing history of Danish psychiatry. A history which is primarily preoccupied with understanding rather than condemning psychiatry of the past, and a history which seems to be characterised by a stronger empirical foundation as well as methodical and theoretical reflections.

 

Boganmeldelse: Vallgårda S. Folkesundhed som politik. Danmark og Sverige fra 1930 til 2000.

Nils Rosdahl

 

Forsidebillede: Det Københavnske Barberlavs Segl.