Papers by Janka Kovács
European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 2024
Transnational history is an approach that informs global history,
although the latter cannot be r... more Transnational history is an approach that informs global history,
although the latter cannot be reduced to the former. Considering
the constitutive role of transnationalism in global history, this dossier
revisits its categories from East Central and Eastern Europe.
Specifically, it builds on and rethinks Kiran Klaus Patel’s and Sven
Reichardt’s concept of the ‘dark side of transnationalism’. Crucially,
this dossier uses this concept to question the assumption that
transnationalism consists of crossing borders and their peaceful
unmaking. Instead, it highlights that transnationalism plays a vital
role in making new borders and maintaining existing ones. This
dossier, therefore, shows that rather than being static, borders can
be on the move, and it is often transnational interactions that set
them in motion. Through several case studies from the modern
history of science and knowledge in this region, the dossier reveals
the complex, contingent and fraught nature of transnational
exchanges, along with their potential for repression. The experiences
of East Central and Eastern Europe thus offer new insights
into transnationalism, borders and the reversibility of globalization.
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Kaleidoscope Művelődés-, Tudomány- és Orvostörténeti Folyóirat, 2021
“It is difficult to judge in cases of uncertain self-killing.” The Discourse on Suicide in Forens... more “It is difficult to judge in cases of uncertain self-killing.” The Discourse on Suicide in Forensic Medicine (1780–1850)
The aim of this article is to explore and contextualize the normative approach to suicide in the emerging discourse of forensic medicine between the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. Viewed through the lenses of processes, such as the medicalization and pathologization of “madness” beginning in the second half of the eighteenth century, which provided one of the most characteristic contexts of the discourse on suicide, the article examines how Hungarian authors and/or translators of textbooks, dissertations, and medical treatises aimed at partially challenging earlier views and methods of handling the problem of suicide. By focusing on three main themes, namely the increasingly valorized pathological knowledge used in judicial procedures, the sociocultural and communal contexts, and the semantic dimension of the discourse, the article also points out the contradictory nature of the discourse that partially contributed to the medicalization and decriminalization of suicide, but at the same time also perpetuated some of the most persistent prejudices and the ambivalence surrounding the act of intentionally taking one’s own life.
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Hungarian Historical Review, 2021
The article focuses on interpretations of madness in early nineteenth-century Hungary medical pra... more The article focuses on interpretations of madness in early nineteenth-century Hungary medical practice from a comparative perspective. By relying on the methodological approach of the anthropology of writing and the analytical considerations offered by Michel Foucault's 1973–1974 lectures on Psychiatric Power, the article discusses the formalized and standardized practices of case history writing. It draws on sources from the teaching clinics at the universities of Pest and Edinburgh, as well as the largest mental asylums in the Habsburg Monarchy in Vienna (est. 1784) and Prague (est. 1790), and the ideal type of mental asylums at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the York Retreat (est. 1796). In doing so, an attempt is made to reconstruct both the physicians' gaze and (to a certain extent) the patients' view, and by examining the therapeutical regime of each hospital and its correlations with the institutional background, uncover whether madness was perceived as a pathological somatic or psychological state in the medical practice of these institutions. This is in and of itself a fundamental question if we seek to understand changing attitudes towards the mad and their curability in a period of transition from a "world without psychiatry" to a "world of psychiatry," when specialized care was still not an option for many, especially in the East Central European region.
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Gerundium Egyetemtörténeti Közlemények, 2020
The 'darkest field' of medicine: psychological knowledge in the curricula of the universities of ... more The 'darkest field' of medicine: psychological knowledge in the curricula of the universities of the Habsburg Monarchy (1786–1830)
In the second half of the 18th century, there appeared a growing interest in Hungarian scientific discourse pertaining to the ‘sciences of man’, and especially psychology. Issues such as the place and function of the soul, its impact on the human body and the nature of mental disorders surfaced in the medical, philosophical and anthropological treatises of the age, whereas the treatment of the mentally ill posed new challenges and demanded answers hitherto unaddressed by medical authorities. However, in medical education, individual courses on psychiatry appeared relatively late, owing to the lack of an institutional background that would have provided the necessary amount of empirical cases and a training ground for physicians. In the Habsburg Monarchy, the first plans to the teaching of psychiatry were proposed only in the 1840s by the leading physicians of the principal asylums established in Vienna (1784) and Prague (1790). Nevertheless, psychological knowledge surfaced in medical education, taught as part of courses on physiology, pathology, medical police, and forensic medicine. As for psychological knowledge, these courses offered the basic outlines of the cognitive faculties, the concepts of feeling and volition, as well as the most common disorders of the soul. The article compares the curricula and textbooks of the three leading medical faculties of the Habsburg Monarchy, the universities of Vienna, Pest, and Prague. The main argument is that even though practical courses were introduced well into the nineteenth century, psychology – as a principally theory-based discipline – was already considered an important ‘auxiliary science’ in medical education.
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Fenntartható tudomány – Hagyomány és újrahasznosítás a felvilágosodás előtt. Szerk.: Bene Ildikó Mária – Molnár Annamária – Szűcs Kata Ágnes – Virág Csilla– Vrabély Márk. Fiatalok Konferenciája 2019. Budapest, reciti., 2020
Translating and Circulating Psychological Knowledge
in Eighteenth-Century Hungarian Medical Liter... more Translating and Circulating Psychological Knowledge
in Eighteenth-Century Hungarian Medical Literature
The 18th century was characterized by the diversity, eclecticism, and inconsistency of medical theories explaining the location and function of the soul, whereas the problem of mental maladies gradually shifted into the focus of medical discourses. Due to the transfer of knowledge between the most important Western centres of knowledge (for example, Halle, Jena or Göttingen), these theories surfaced in Hungarian medical treatises as well and were discussed not only in scientific texts but – in a more rudimentary and simplified manner – in publications aimed at
illuminating the common folk. In this paper, using the emerging discipline of psychology as my example, I examine the ‘double act’ of translation, by which the different notions and concepts linked to pathological mental states did not only go through a linguistic transformation but were also adapted into new cultural and social contexts. Using the notions of cultural transfer and cultural translation as a starting point, besides the idiomatic aspects of translation, I focus on the different
‘strategies’ used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge by taking the different registers and the stylistic, paratextual and typographical layers of the texts into consideration.
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Korall Társadalomtörténeti Folyóirat, 2019
Poverty, Illness, Madness: Treating the Mentally Ill in the Hungarian Hospitals of the Brothers o... more Poverty, Illness, Madness: Treating the Mentally Ill in the Hungarian Hospitals of the Brothers of Mercy (1740–1830)
The paper addresses the 18th- and early 19th-century practices of care for the mentally ill in the Hungarian hospitals of the Brothers of Mercy, highlighting the connections between illness and poverty and the approaches towards the mentally ill in a period when the new means of clinical treatment and specialized care were already underway. The order settled in Hungary in the middle of the 17th century with the aim of providing care for mostly poor people. They were traditionally inclined towards the mentally ill, and even though in this period we cannot talk about standardized care and a systematic therapeutic regime, the pursuit of registering and isolating the ‘mad’ within general hospitals is already detectable.
Besides the social background of the patients, the remaining documents (patient statistics, registries and regulations) enable us to examine how mental illnesses were named and classified in the hospital. What is more, there are references to the isolation of the ‘mad’ and their division into different classes based on their social and financial background and their mental states.
On the basis of the documents of hospital administration, complemented with narrative sources reflecting on the daily routine of the hospital (such as newspapers, medical topographies, and travelogues), the problems of medicalization and the pursuit of specialized care are addressed by examining a severely marginalized and stigmatized subgroup of hospital patients.
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Sic Itur ad Astra, 2019
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
KOR/TÁRS: Kapcsolat, háló(zat) és közösség az 1800 előtti Európában, Fiatalok Konferenciája 2018. Szerk.: Erdődi Alexandra Anita – Finta Mária Anna – Molnár Annamária – Virág Csilla – Vrabély Márk. Budapest, reciti, 2019
The Sermon as the Medium of Knowledge Transfer
Mental Illnesses in Hungarian Sermons at the Turn ... more The Sermon as the Medium of Knowledge Transfer
Mental Illnesses in Hungarian Sermons at the Turn of the 18th and
19th Centuries
One of the most significant contexts of the transfer of knowledge towards the public during the 18th and the early 19th centuries in Hungary was the culture of orality. Accordingly, sermons were considered as a vastly effective method of transmitting knowledge, especially in Protestant practice. The study explores the representations and interpretations of mental illnesses in print and manuscript sources (mainly Sunday’s sermons and funeral orations) with a special focus on their didactic and pragmatic character. To highlight the differences between the texts, their variances in composition and their intended readership/listeners are examined. As for the representations of mental illnesses, the study aims at capturing how the different constituents of medical and philosophical theories on the relations between body and soul or the problem of consciousness were simplified and explained to the public. Furthermore, the changing attitudes towards mental maladies can also be understood through the lens of sermons within the context of medicalisation and secularisation.
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Aetas Történettudományi Folyóirat, 2019
“Emotional ailments” and “troubles of the mind”. Illnesses of the soul in
medical dissertations o... more “Emotional ailments” and “troubles of the mind”. Illnesses of the soul in
medical dissertations on the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries
Complex scientific ideas explaining the soul and its ailments, place, role, and effect on the body first formed in the fields of medicine, philosophy, anthropology, and pedagogy, then they became disciplines of their own by the second half of the 19th century. Interest in human sciences, including the scientific examination of the soul, started in Hungary during the second half of the 18th century. This is clearly discernible from the scientific discourse of the time, an important part of which were the dissertations written at the end of one’s university studies, which were published in print as well. The dissertations examined in this study present significant information regarding what was taught at universities about the nature and role of the soul, as well as its illnesses, and how this knowledge changed and improved during the examined time period. In other words, what new, empirical information about the illnesses of the soul and the mind got added to the texts besides the preexisting base of knowledge. Furthermore, as most of these dissertations were not original works, but compilations, the reception of new pieces of knowledge from Western Europe can also be examined in them. The present study focuses on the dissertations written and defended by the Hungarian students of the universities of Vienna and Nagyszombat/Buda/Pest between 1750 and 1830.
Only a small number of dissertations about ailments of the soul were written at the examined universities during this period, but references or even entire chapters dedicated to these illnesses often appeared in dissertations focusing on different topics. To account for this, we have expanded the scope of examined texts to dissertations in which the illnesses of the soul appeared as causes or risk factors for other pathological conditions or said to be caused by these conditions. Dissertations focusing on medical practices and therapy should also be examined in relation to this topic since during this period they already contained practical information regarding the treatment of the mentally ill.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Kaleidoscope Művelődés-, Tudomány- és Orvostörténeti Folyóirat, 2015
The representations of mental illnesses in Hungarian medical literature at the turn of the 18th a... more The representations of mental illnesses in Hungarian medical literature at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries
In this paper we examine the different types of medical literature written in or translated into Hungarian between 1770 and 1820, our special focus being the representations of mental illnesses. We examined both scientific texts, echoing the contemporary Western medical theories aimed at a narrower readership, the scholarly circles, and medical publications written in the vernacular for the wider public, their subject being common medical knowledge, focusing mostly on preventive measures. The 18th century was characterized by the diversity, eclecticism, and inconsistency of medical theories explaining the location and role of the soul within the human body. From among these approaches, the most significant were animism, vitalism, and mechanical theories. In our paper we will make an attempt to map the
reception of these theories in the aforementioned scholarly texts, examining the most emphatic notions and concepts, such as the relations between body and soul, the question of the vital principle, the attempts to define the role of the soul and ‘psychology’ itself, along
with the most common explanations of mental disorders (such as hysteria, hypochondria, mania or melancholy). As for popular medical publications, we will make an attempt to reconstruct how the most important notions and concepts of Western medical theories concerning mental illnesses were presented to the wider public, highlighting the different ‘strategies’ used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge. Thus, for pragmatic reasons, we have chosen to examine the specific aspects of the texts that can be perceived as ‘inscribed’ meanings. These meanings, based on the assumption that the writers kept the needs and expectations of the aimed readership in mind, were written into the text, structure and paratextual elements of the publications. This allows us to present several aspects of our chosen topic, including the field of the history of scientific knowledge, as well as the history of information and communication.
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Kaleidoscope Művelődés-, Tudomány és Orvostörténeti Folyóirat, 2018
“This illness is not lethal, but is often burdensome and prolonged…” Approaches to Healing the Me... more “This illness is not lethal, but is often burdensome and prolonged…” Approaches to Healing the Mentally Ill in Hungary at the Turn of the 18th and 19th Centuries
By the second half of the 18th century, the attitudes towards mental illnesses and the question of their curability were subject to change. In the medical discourse, the diseases of the soul were already considered as curable, or at least treatable states. The article explores the therapeutic pursuits and healing methods in late 18th-century and early 19th-century Hungary by reviewing printed and manuscript sources including dispensatories, herbal books, treatises on domestic medicine and case studies from the teaching clinic of the University of Pest. By relying on these sources, it is possible to link the concepts of psychological disorders, the transfers of knowledge and the medical practice of treating mental maladies. This allows us to present several aspects of the subject, including the gradual medicalization of mental illnesses, the frameworks of their interpretation, as well as the somatic and/or psychological approaches to the healing of the soul/mind.
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Sic Itur ad Astra, 2017
Popular Enlightenment at the Turn of the 18th and 19th Centuries: Circulating Psychological Knowl... more Popular Enlightenment at the Turn of the 18th and 19th Centuries: Circulating Psychological Knowledge
In this paper, the different types of popular medical literature, textbooks, newspapers, and sermons are examined, the special focus is the representation of mental illnesses and the methods by which psychological knowledge was transmitted towards the common folk. By examining the popular publications written in the vernacular, the aim is to reconstruct how the most important notions and concepts of medical and social approaches concerning mental illnesses were presented to the wider public. Upon examining each genre, the different “strategies” used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge are highlighted. Thus, for pragmatic reasons, we have chosen to examine the specific aspects of the texts that can be perceived as ‘inscribed meanings. These meanings, based on the assumption that the writers kept the needs and expectations of the aimed readership in mind, were written into the text, structure and paratextual elements of the publications. This allows us to present several aspects of our chosen topic, including the field of the history of scientific knowledge, as well as the history of information and communication.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Korall Társadalomtörténeti Folyóirat, 2018
Mental Health Policy at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century: Theoretical Framework, Concepts, Prop... more Mental Health Policy at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century: Theoretical Framework, Concepts, Proposals
Analyzing theoretical approaches and pragmatic proposals found in the literature of law enforcement and health administration, the study examines the contemporary theory of and approaches to the care for people living with an infirmity of either mind or soul. The overview also takes into account the English model, which was considered exemplary at the time, as well as concepts found in the references of German-language works and in Hungarian health administration- related texts. Special emphasis is placed on the contexts which these texts deploy, such as questions of poverty and discipline, the most frequently discussed topics, symptomatology, as well as the terms and speech modes used to describe the patients and their condition. Further questions concern whose remit healthcare was thought to be at the time, where mental health patients belonged within institutionalized caregiving, and what the actual and/or idealised image of these institutions was like in health administration and enforcement texts. The study scrutinizes contemporary pragmatic healthcare solutions by surveying theorists’ attitudes and answers to these questions – each coming from their own respec- tive disciplines.
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Book Reviews by Janka Kovács
Historical Studies on Central Europe, 2022
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Hungarian Historical Review, 2022
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Klió Történelmi Szemléző Folyóirat, 2022
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Sic Itur Ad Astra 74., 2021
Dögvészkalauz. Járványok és gyógyításuk története az ókortól napjainkig. Szerk.: Czeferner Dóra –... more Dögvészkalauz. Járványok és gyógyításuk története az ókortól napjainkig. Szerk.: Czeferner Dóra – Fedeles Tamás. Pécs–Budapest, PTKE–Kronosz, 2021. 253.
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Korall Társadalomtörténeti Folyóirat, 2018
Andrew Scull: Az őrület kultúrtörténete. A Bibliától Freudig, a bolondokházától a modern orvostud... more Andrew Scull: Az őrület kultúrtörténete. A Bibliától Freudig, a bolondokházától a modern orvostudományig. Corvina, Budapest, 2017. 518 pp.
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Sic Itur ad Astra, 2018
Disease and Death in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture: Fashioning the Unfashionable. Eds... more Disease and Death in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture: Fashioning the Unfashionable. Eds.: Allan Ingram – Leigh Wetherall Dickson. London, Palgrave Macmillan,
2017. pp. 290.
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Hungarian Historical Review, 2017
The body in society: Proceedings of the conference of the Hajnal István Circle – Hungarian Social... more The body in society: Proceedings of the conference of the Hajnal István Circle – Hungarian Social History Association, Sümeg, 2013. Edited by Emese Gyimesi, András Lénárt, and Erzsébet Takács. Budapest: Hajnal István Kör Társadalomtörténeti Egyesület, 2015. 435 pp.
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Papers by Janka Kovács
although the latter cannot be reduced to the former. Considering
the constitutive role of transnationalism in global history, this dossier
revisits its categories from East Central and Eastern Europe.
Specifically, it builds on and rethinks Kiran Klaus Patel’s and Sven
Reichardt’s concept of the ‘dark side of transnationalism’. Crucially,
this dossier uses this concept to question the assumption that
transnationalism consists of crossing borders and their peaceful
unmaking. Instead, it highlights that transnationalism plays a vital
role in making new borders and maintaining existing ones. This
dossier, therefore, shows that rather than being static, borders can
be on the move, and it is often transnational interactions that set
them in motion. Through several case studies from the modern
history of science and knowledge in this region, the dossier reveals
the complex, contingent and fraught nature of transnational
exchanges, along with their potential for repression. The experiences
of East Central and Eastern Europe thus offer new insights
into transnationalism, borders and the reversibility of globalization.
The aim of this article is to explore and contextualize the normative approach to suicide in the emerging discourse of forensic medicine between the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. Viewed through the lenses of processes, such as the medicalization and pathologization of “madness” beginning in the second half of the eighteenth century, which provided one of the most characteristic contexts of the discourse on suicide, the article examines how Hungarian authors and/or translators of textbooks, dissertations, and medical treatises aimed at partially challenging earlier views and methods of handling the problem of suicide. By focusing on three main themes, namely the increasingly valorized pathological knowledge used in judicial procedures, the sociocultural and communal contexts, and the semantic dimension of the discourse, the article also points out the contradictory nature of the discourse that partially contributed to the medicalization and decriminalization of suicide, but at the same time also perpetuated some of the most persistent prejudices and the ambivalence surrounding the act of intentionally taking one’s own life.
In the second half of the 18th century, there appeared a growing interest in Hungarian scientific discourse pertaining to the ‘sciences of man’, and especially psychology. Issues such as the place and function of the soul, its impact on the human body and the nature of mental disorders surfaced in the medical, philosophical and anthropological treatises of the age, whereas the treatment of the mentally ill posed new challenges and demanded answers hitherto unaddressed by medical authorities. However, in medical education, individual courses on psychiatry appeared relatively late, owing to the lack of an institutional background that would have provided the necessary amount of empirical cases and a training ground for physicians. In the Habsburg Monarchy, the first plans to the teaching of psychiatry were proposed only in the 1840s by the leading physicians of the principal asylums established in Vienna (1784) and Prague (1790). Nevertheless, psychological knowledge surfaced in medical education, taught as part of courses on physiology, pathology, medical police, and forensic medicine. As for psychological knowledge, these courses offered the basic outlines of the cognitive faculties, the concepts of feeling and volition, as well as the most common disorders of the soul. The article compares the curricula and textbooks of the three leading medical faculties of the Habsburg Monarchy, the universities of Vienna, Pest, and Prague. The main argument is that even though practical courses were introduced well into the nineteenth century, psychology – as a principally theory-based discipline – was already considered an important ‘auxiliary science’ in medical education.
in Eighteenth-Century Hungarian Medical Literature
The 18th century was characterized by the diversity, eclecticism, and inconsistency of medical theories explaining the location and function of the soul, whereas the problem of mental maladies gradually shifted into the focus of medical discourses. Due to the transfer of knowledge between the most important Western centres of knowledge (for example, Halle, Jena or Göttingen), these theories surfaced in Hungarian medical treatises as well and were discussed not only in scientific texts but – in a more rudimentary and simplified manner – in publications aimed at
illuminating the common folk. In this paper, using the emerging discipline of psychology as my example, I examine the ‘double act’ of translation, by which the different notions and concepts linked to pathological mental states did not only go through a linguistic transformation but were also adapted into new cultural and social contexts. Using the notions of cultural transfer and cultural translation as a starting point, besides the idiomatic aspects of translation, I focus on the different
‘strategies’ used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge by taking the different registers and the stylistic, paratextual and typographical layers of the texts into consideration.
The paper addresses the 18th- and early 19th-century practices of care for the mentally ill in the Hungarian hospitals of the Brothers of Mercy, highlighting the connections between illness and poverty and the approaches towards the mentally ill in a period when the new means of clinical treatment and specialized care were already underway. The order settled in Hungary in the middle of the 17th century with the aim of providing care for mostly poor people. They were traditionally inclined towards the mentally ill, and even though in this period we cannot talk about standardized care and a systematic therapeutic regime, the pursuit of registering and isolating the ‘mad’ within general hospitals is already detectable.
Besides the social background of the patients, the remaining documents (patient statistics, registries and regulations) enable us to examine how mental illnesses were named and classified in the hospital. What is more, there are references to the isolation of the ‘mad’ and their division into different classes based on their social and financial background and their mental states.
On the basis of the documents of hospital administration, complemented with narrative sources reflecting on the daily routine of the hospital (such as newspapers, medical topographies, and travelogues), the problems of medicalization and the pursuit of specialized care are addressed by examining a severely marginalized and stigmatized subgroup of hospital patients.
Mental Illnesses in Hungarian Sermons at the Turn of the 18th and
19th Centuries
One of the most significant contexts of the transfer of knowledge towards the public during the 18th and the early 19th centuries in Hungary was the culture of orality. Accordingly, sermons were considered as a vastly effective method of transmitting knowledge, especially in Protestant practice. The study explores the representations and interpretations of mental illnesses in print and manuscript sources (mainly Sunday’s sermons and funeral orations) with a special focus on their didactic and pragmatic character. To highlight the differences between the texts, their variances in composition and their intended readership/listeners are examined. As for the representations of mental illnesses, the study aims at capturing how the different constituents of medical and philosophical theories on the relations between body and soul or the problem of consciousness were simplified and explained to the public. Furthermore, the changing attitudes towards mental maladies can also be understood through the lens of sermons within the context of medicalisation and secularisation.
medical dissertations on the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries
Complex scientific ideas explaining the soul and its ailments, place, role, and effect on the body first formed in the fields of medicine, philosophy, anthropology, and pedagogy, then they became disciplines of their own by the second half of the 19th century. Interest in human sciences, including the scientific examination of the soul, started in Hungary during the second half of the 18th century. This is clearly discernible from the scientific discourse of the time, an important part of which were the dissertations written at the end of one’s university studies, which were published in print as well. The dissertations examined in this study present significant information regarding what was taught at universities about the nature and role of the soul, as well as its illnesses, and how this knowledge changed and improved during the examined time period. In other words, what new, empirical information about the illnesses of the soul and the mind got added to the texts besides the preexisting base of knowledge. Furthermore, as most of these dissertations were not original works, but compilations, the reception of new pieces of knowledge from Western Europe can also be examined in them. The present study focuses on the dissertations written and defended by the Hungarian students of the universities of Vienna and Nagyszombat/Buda/Pest between 1750 and 1830.
Only a small number of dissertations about ailments of the soul were written at the examined universities during this period, but references or even entire chapters dedicated to these illnesses often appeared in dissertations focusing on different topics. To account for this, we have expanded the scope of examined texts to dissertations in which the illnesses of the soul appeared as causes or risk factors for other pathological conditions or said to be caused by these conditions. Dissertations focusing on medical practices and therapy should also be examined in relation to this topic since during this period they already contained practical information regarding the treatment of the mentally ill.
In this paper we examine the different types of medical literature written in or translated into Hungarian between 1770 and 1820, our special focus being the representations of mental illnesses. We examined both scientific texts, echoing the contemporary Western medical theories aimed at a narrower readership, the scholarly circles, and medical publications written in the vernacular for the wider public, their subject being common medical knowledge, focusing mostly on preventive measures. The 18th century was characterized by the diversity, eclecticism, and inconsistency of medical theories explaining the location and role of the soul within the human body. From among these approaches, the most significant were animism, vitalism, and mechanical theories. In our paper we will make an attempt to map the
reception of these theories in the aforementioned scholarly texts, examining the most emphatic notions and concepts, such as the relations between body and soul, the question of the vital principle, the attempts to define the role of the soul and ‘psychology’ itself, along
with the most common explanations of mental disorders (such as hysteria, hypochondria, mania or melancholy). As for popular medical publications, we will make an attempt to reconstruct how the most important notions and concepts of Western medical theories concerning mental illnesses were presented to the wider public, highlighting the different ‘strategies’ used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge. Thus, for pragmatic reasons, we have chosen to examine the specific aspects of the texts that can be perceived as ‘inscribed’ meanings. These meanings, based on the assumption that the writers kept the needs and expectations of the aimed readership in mind, were written into the text, structure and paratextual elements of the publications. This allows us to present several aspects of our chosen topic, including the field of the history of scientific knowledge, as well as the history of information and communication.
By the second half of the 18th century, the attitudes towards mental illnesses and the question of their curability were subject to change. In the medical discourse, the diseases of the soul were already considered as curable, or at least treatable states. The article explores the therapeutic pursuits and healing methods in late 18th-century and early 19th-century Hungary by reviewing printed and manuscript sources including dispensatories, herbal books, treatises on domestic medicine and case studies from the teaching clinic of the University of Pest. By relying on these sources, it is possible to link the concepts of psychological disorders, the transfers of knowledge and the medical practice of treating mental maladies. This allows us to present several aspects of the subject, including the gradual medicalization of mental illnesses, the frameworks of their interpretation, as well as the somatic and/or psychological approaches to the healing of the soul/mind.
In this paper, the different types of popular medical literature, textbooks, newspapers, and sermons are examined, the special focus is the representation of mental illnesses and the methods by which psychological knowledge was transmitted towards the common folk. By examining the popular publications written in the vernacular, the aim is to reconstruct how the most important notions and concepts of medical and social approaches concerning mental illnesses were presented to the wider public. Upon examining each genre, the different “strategies” used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge are highlighted. Thus, for pragmatic reasons, we have chosen to examine the specific aspects of the texts that can be perceived as ‘inscribed meanings. These meanings, based on the assumption that the writers kept the needs and expectations of the aimed readership in mind, were written into the text, structure and paratextual elements of the publications. This allows us to present several aspects of our chosen topic, including the field of the history of scientific knowledge, as well as the history of information and communication.
Analyzing theoretical approaches and pragmatic proposals found in the literature of law enforcement and health administration, the study examines the contemporary theory of and approaches to the care for people living with an infirmity of either mind or soul. The overview also takes into account the English model, which was considered exemplary at the time, as well as concepts found in the references of German-language works and in Hungarian health administration- related texts. Special emphasis is placed on the contexts which these texts deploy, such as questions of poverty and discipline, the most frequently discussed topics, symptomatology, as well as the terms and speech modes used to describe the patients and their condition. Further questions concern whose remit healthcare was thought to be at the time, where mental health patients belonged within institutionalized caregiving, and what the actual and/or idealised image of these institutions was like in health administration and enforcement texts. The study scrutinizes contemporary pragmatic healthcare solutions by surveying theorists’ attitudes and answers to these questions – each coming from their own respec- tive disciplines.
Book Reviews by Janka Kovács
2017. pp. 290.
although the latter cannot be reduced to the former. Considering
the constitutive role of transnationalism in global history, this dossier
revisits its categories from East Central and Eastern Europe.
Specifically, it builds on and rethinks Kiran Klaus Patel’s and Sven
Reichardt’s concept of the ‘dark side of transnationalism’. Crucially,
this dossier uses this concept to question the assumption that
transnationalism consists of crossing borders and their peaceful
unmaking. Instead, it highlights that transnationalism plays a vital
role in making new borders and maintaining existing ones. This
dossier, therefore, shows that rather than being static, borders can
be on the move, and it is often transnational interactions that set
them in motion. Through several case studies from the modern
history of science and knowledge in this region, the dossier reveals
the complex, contingent and fraught nature of transnational
exchanges, along with their potential for repression. The experiences
of East Central and Eastern Europe thus offer new insights
into transnationalism, borders and the reversibility of globalization.
The aim of this article is to explore and contextualize the normative approach to suicide in the emerging discourse of forensic medicine between the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. Viewed through the lenses of processes, such as the medicalization and pathologization of “madness” beginning in the second half of the eighteenth century, which provided one of the most characteristic contexts of the discourse on suicide, the article examines how Hungarian authors and/or translators of textbooks, dissertations, and medical treatises aimed at partially challenging earlier views and methods of handling the problem of suicide. By focusing on three main themes, namely the increasingly valorized pathological knowledge used in judicial procedures, the sociocultural and communal contexts, and the semantic dimension of the discourse, the article also points out the contradictory nature of the discourse that partially contributed to the medicalization and decriminalization of suicide, but at the same time also perpetuated some of the most persistent prejudices and the ambivalence surrounding the act of intentionally taking one’s own life.
In the second half of the 18th century, there appeared a growing interest in Hungarian scientific discourse pertaining to the ‘sciences of man’, and especially psychology. Issues such as the place and function of the soul, its impact on the human body and the nature of mental disorders surfaced in the medical, philosophical and anthropological treatises of the age, whereas the treatment of the mentally ill posed new challenges and demanded answers hitherto unaddressed by medical authorities. However, in medical education, individual courses on psychiatry appeared relatively late, owing to the lack of an institutional background that would have provided the necessary amount of empirical cases and a training ground for physicians. In the Habsburg Monarchy, the first plans to the teaching of psychiatry were proposed only in the 1840s by the leading physicians of the principal asylums established in Vienna (1784) and Prague (1790). Nevertheless, psychological knowledge surfaced in medical education, taught as part of courses on physiology, pathology, medical police, and forensic medicine. As for psychological knowledge, these courses offered the basic outlines of the cognitive faculties, the concepts of feeling and volition, as well as the most common disorders of the soul. The article compares the curricula and textbooks of the three leading medical faculties of the Habsburg Monarchy, the universities of Vienna, Pest, and Prague. The main argument is that even though practical courses were introduced well into the nineteenth century, psychology – as a principally theory-based discipline – was already considered an important ‘auxiliary science’ in medical education.
in Eighteenth-Century Hungarian Medical Literature
The 18th century was characterized by the diversity, eclecticism, and inconsistency of medical theories explaining the location and function of the soul, whereas the problem of mental maladies gradually shifted into the focus of medical discourses. Due to the transfer of knowledge between the most important Western centres of knowledge (for example, Halle, Jena or Göttingen), these theories surfaced in Hungarian medical treatises as well and were discussed not only in scientific texts but – in a more rudimentary and simplified manner – in publications aimed at
illuminating the common folk. In this paper, using the emerging discipline of psychology as my example, I examine the ‘double act’ of translation, by which the different notions and concepts linked to pathological mental states did not only go through a linguistic transformation but were also adapted into new cultural and social contexts. Using the notions of cultural transfer and cultural translation as a starting point, besides the idiomatic aspects of translation, I focus on the different
‘strategies’ used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge by taking the different registers and the stylistic, paratextual and typographical layers of the texts into consideration.
The paper addresses the 18th- and early 19th-century practices of care for the mentally ill in the Hungarian hospitals of the Brothers of Mercy, highlighting the connections between illness and poverty and the approaches towards the mentally ill in a period when the new means of clinical treatment and specialized care were already underway. The order settled in Hungary in the middle of the 17th century with the aim of providing care for mostly poor people. They were traditionally inclined towards the mentally ill, and even though in this period we cannot talk about standardized care and a systematic therapeutic regime, the pursuit of registering and isolating the ‘mad’ within general hospitals is already detectable.
Besides the social background of the patients, the remaining documents (patient statistics, registries and regulations) enable us to examine how mental illnesses were named and classified in the hospital. What is more, there are references to the isolation of the ‘mad’ and their division into different classes based on their social and financial background and their mental states.
On the basis of the documents of hospital administration, complemented with narrative sources reflecting on the daily routine of the hospital (such as newspapers, medical topographies, and travelogues), the problems of medicalization and the pursuit of specialized care are addressed by examining a severely marginalized and stigmatized subgroup of hospital patients.
Mental Illnesses in Hungarian Sermons at the Turn of the 18th and
19th Centuries
One of the most significant contexts of the transfer of knowledge towards the public during the 18th and the early 19th centuries in Hungary was the culture of orality. Accordingly, sermons were considered as a vastly effective method of transmitting knowledge, especially in Protestant practice. The study explores the representations and interpretations of mental illnesses in print and manuscript sources (mainly Sunday’s sermons and funeral orations) with a special focus on their didactic and pragmatic character. To highlight the differences between the texts, their variances in composition and their intended readership/listeners are examined. As for the representations of mental illnesses, the study aims at capturing how the different constituents of medical and philosophical theories on the relations between body and soul or the problem of consciousness were simplified and explained to the public. Furthermore, the changing attitudes towards mental maladies can also be understood through the lens of sermons within the context of medicalisation and secularisation.
medical dissertations on the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries
Complex scientific ideas explaining the soul and its ailments, place, role, and effect on the body first formed in the fields of medicine, philosophy, anthropology, and pedagogy, then they became disciplines of their own by the second half of the 19th century. Interest in human sciences, including the scientific examination of the soul, started in Hungary during the second half of the 18th century. This is clearly discernible from the scientific discourse of the time, an important part of which were the dissertations written at the end of one’s university studies, which were published in print as well. The dissertations examined in this study present significant information regarding what was taught at universities about the nature and role of the soul, as well as its illnesses, and how this knowledge changed and improved during the examined time period. In other words, what new, empirical information about the illnesses of the soul and the mind got added to the texts besides the preexisting base of knowledge. Furthermore, as most of these dissertations were not original works, but compilations, the reception of new pieces of knowledge from Western Europe can also be examined in them. The present study focuses on the dissertations written and defended by the Hungarian students of the universities of Vienna and Nagyszombat/Buda/Pest between 1750 and 1830.
Only a small number of dissertations about ailments of the soul were written at the examined universities during this period, but references or even entire chapters dedicated to these illnesses often appeared in dissertations focusing on different topics. To account for this, we have expanded the scope of examined texts to dissertations in which the illnesses of the soul appeared as causes or risk factors for other pathological conditions or said to be caused by these conditions. Dissertations focusing on medical practices and therapy should also be examined in relation to this topic since during this period they already contained practical information regarding the treatment of the mentally ill.
In this paper we examine the different types of medical literature written in or translated into Hungarian between 1770 and 1820, our special focus being the representations of mental illnesses. We examined both scientific texts, echoing the contemporary Western medical theories aimed at a narrower readership, the scholarly circles, and medical publications written in the vernacular for the wider public, their subject being common medical knowledge, focusing mostly on preventive measures. The 18th century was characterized by the diversity, eclecticism, and inconsistency of medical theories explaining the location and role of the soul within the human body. From among these approaches, the most significant were animism, vitalism, and mechanical theories. In our paper we will make an attempt to map the
reception of these theories in the aforementioned scholarly texts, examining the most emphatic notions and concepts, such as the relations between body and soul, the question of the vital principle, the attempts to define the role of the soul and ‘psychology’ itself, along
with the most common explanations of mental disorders (such as hysteria, hypochondria, mania or melancholy). As for popular medical publications, we will make an attempt to reconstruct how the most important notions and concepts of Western medical theories concerning mental illnesses were presented to the wider public, highlighting the different ‘strategies’ used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge. Thus, for pragmatic reasons, we have chosen to examine the specific aspects of the texts that can be perceived as ‘inscribed’ meanings. These meanings, based on the assumption that the writers kept the needs and expectations of the aimed readership in mind, were written into the text, structure and paratextual elements of the publications. This allows us to present several aspects of our chosen topic, including the field of the history of scientific knowledge, as well as the history of information and communication.
By the second half of the 18th century, the attitudes towards mental illnesses and the question of their curability were subject to change. In the medical discourse, the diseases of the soul were already considered as curable, or at least treatable states. The article explores the therapeutic pursuits and healing methods in late 18th-century and early 19th-century Hungary by reviewing printed and manuscript sources including dispensatories, herbal books, treatises on domestic medicine and case studies from the teaching clinic of the University of Pest. By relying on these sources, it is possible to link the concepts of psychological disorders, the transfers of knowledge and the medical practice of treating mental maladies. This allows us to present several aspects of the subject, including the gradual medicalization of mental illnesses, the frameworks of their interpretation, as well as the somatic and/or psychological approaches to the healing of the soul/mind.
In this paper, the different types of popular medical literature, textbooks, newspapers, and sermons are examined, the special focus is the representation of mental illnesses and the methods by which psychological knowledge was transmitted towards the common folk. By examining the popular publications written in the vernacular, the aim is to reconstruct how the most important notions and concepts of medical and social approaches concerning mental illnesses were presented to the wider public. Upon examining each genre, the different “strategies” used to transform scientific knowledge into common knowledge are highlighted. Thus, for pragmatic reasons, we have chosen to examine the specific aspects of the texts that can be perceived as ‘inscribed meanings. These meanings, based on the assumption that the writers kept the needs and expectations of the aimed readership in mind, were written into the text, structure and paratextual elements of the publications. This allows us to present several aspects of our chosen topic, including the field of the history of scientific knowledge, as well as the history of information and communication.
Analyzing theoretical approaches and pragmatic proposals found in the literature of law enforcement and health administration, the study examines the contemporary theory of and approaches to the care for people living with an infirmity of either mind or soul. The overview also takes into account the English model, which was considered exemplary at the time, as well as concepts found in the references of German-language works and in Hungarian health administration- related texts. Special emphasis is placed on the contexts which these texts deploy, such as questions of poverty and discipline, the most frequently discussed topics, symptomatology, as well as the terms and speech modes used to describe the patients and their condition. Further questions concern whose remit healthcare was thought to be at the time, where mental health patients belonged within institutionalized caregiving, and what the actual and/or idealised image of these institutions was like in health administration and enforcement texts. The study scrutinizes contemporary pragmatic healthcare solutions by surveying theorists’ attitudes and answers to these questions – each coming from their own respec- tive disciplines.
2017. pp. 290.