Neurology and modernity : a cultural history of nervous systems, 1800-1950

"An exploration of the habits of the modern era beside cultural notions discovering brain function and the nervous system to be central to health and illness. It looks at debates within neurology and culture through neurological works, popular advice, and the appearance of neurological disorders within the aesthetic artefacts of modernity"--Provided by publisher. As people of the modern era were singularly prone to nervous disorders, the nervous system became a model for describing political and social organization. This volume untangles the mutual dependencies of scientific neurology and the cultural attitudes of the period 1800-1950, exploring how and why modernity was a fundamentally nervous state. Citizens of the modern era found themselves singularly prone to nervous disorders, while at the same historical moment the nervous system became a privileged model for describing the organization of political and social spheres. Neurology and Modernity describes and explores this intriguing coincidence, uncovering the centrality of neurological ideas of health, disease, and experience within the medical treatises, popular advice manuals, science fiction, literary fiction, spiritualist tracts, philosophy, government reports and military tribunals of the period 1800-1950. This volume traces and illuminates the cultural ideas and anxieties that informed representations of the nervous body, whilst showing how many of the most distinctive features of the period known as modernity seem to vibrate in sympathy with neurology's central concerns. The thirteen new studies in this volume untangle the significant mutual dependencies between scientific neurology and the cultural attitudes of the period, exploring how and why modernity remained such a fundamentally nervous state Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction....Pages 1-40 Beyond the Brain: Sceptical and Satirical Responses to Gall’s Organology....Pages 41-58 Neurology and the Invention of Menstruation....Pages 59-80 Carlyle’s Nervous Dyspepsia: Nervousness, Indigestion and the Experience of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Britain....Pages 81-95 Railway Spine, Nervous Excess and the Forensic Self....Pages 96-112 “The Conviction of its Existence”: Silas Weir Mitchell, Phantom Limbs and Phantom Bodies in Neurology and Spiritualism....Pages 113-129 Modernism and the Two Paranoias: The Neurology of Persecution....Pages 130-147 “Nerve-Vibration”: Therapeutic Technologies in the 1880s and 1890s....Pages 148-162 From Daniel Paul Schreber through the Dr. Phil Family: Modernity, Neurology and the Cult of the Case Study Superstar....Pages 163-183 “I guess I’m just nervous, then”: Neuropathology and Edith Wharton’s Exploration of Interior Geographies....Pages 184-203 Sounds of Silence: Aphasiology and the Subject of Modernity....Pages 204-230 Shell Shock as a Self-Inflicted Wound, 1915–1921....Pages 231-244 Modernity and the Peristaltic Subject....Pages 245-266 Matter for Thought: The Psychon in Neurology, Psychology and American Culture, 1927–1943....Pages 267-286 Back Matter....Pages 287-298 Machine generated contents note: Introduction: Introduction: Neurology and Modernity L.Salisbury& A.Shail. PART I DISCOURSES AND DISCOVERIES Beyond the Brain: Sceptical and Satirical Responses to Galls Organology M.K.House Neurology and the Invention of Menstruation A.Shail Railway Spine, Nervous Excess, and the Forensic Self J.F.Thrailkill Modernity and the Peristaltic Subject J.Walton Sounds of Silence: Aphasiology and the Subject of Modernity L.Salisbury I guess Im just nervous, then: Neuropathology and Edith Whartons Exploration of Interior Geographies V.Plock Matter for Thought: The Psychon in Neurology, Psychology and American Culture, 1927-1943 M.Littlefield PART II: DISORDERS Modernism and the Two Paranoias: The Neurology of Persecution G.Rousseau Carlyles Nervous Dyspepsia: Nervousness, Indigestion and the Experience of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Britain H.Ishizuka Nerve-Vibration: Therapeutic Technologies in the 1880s and 1890s S.Trower The Conviction of its Existence: Silas Weir Mitchell, Phantom Limbs and Phantom Bodies in Neurology and Spiritualism A.Satz From Daniel Paul Schreber through the Dr. Phil Family: Modernity, Neurology and the Cult of the Case Study Superstar M.A.Tata Shell Shock as a Self-Inflicted Wound, 1915-1921 J.Meyer.