Histories of the Normal and the Abnormal: Social and cultural histories of norms and normativity (Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine)

305 Pages·2006·2.76 MB·English

by  Waltraud Ernst

Histories of the Normal and the
Abnormal
Each culture and historic period has its specific ways of defining what we
would nowadays refer to as the ‘normal’. Until the middle of the nineteenth
century, the term ‘normal’ was defined in English dictionaries simply in a
formalistic way as ‘standing at right angles’, while the first edition of the
Dictionnaire de l’Académie françaiseof 1694 does not even carry a definition for
‘normal’. Where we now would use the term ‘normal’, pre-modern defini-
tions referred to the ‘natural’. The change from a religiously ordained
natural order to a scientifically grounded secular framework, and the emer-
gence of the normal/abnormal dichotomy in preference to the earlier polari-
sation of natural/unnatural, encapsulate an important shift, with the
emergence of modern science bringing issues of norms and normativity into
sharp focus.
The essays in this collection engage with the concepts of the normal and
the abnormal from a variety of different academic disciplines, including the
history of art, the social history of medicine and cultural anthropology.
The internationally respected contributors use as their conceptual anchors
the works of moral and political philosophers (Foucault, Canguilhem and
Hacking), sociologists (Durkheim, Goffman) and anthropologists (Benedict,
Douglas and Mead). Major themes covered include the way norms are con-
structed and reinforced; how the abnormal is streamlined or excluded; how
the abnormal serves to reassert norms and normality; and the representations
of the abnormal as spectacle and wonder.
Waltraud Ernstis Reader in History at the University of Southampton.
Routledge studies in the social history of medicine
Edited by Joseph Melling
University of Exeter
and
Anne Borsay
University of Wales, Swansea, UK
The Society for the Social History of Medicine was founded in 1969, and exists
to promote research into all aspects of the field, without regard to limitations
of either time or place. In addition to this book series, the Society also organ-
ises a regular programme of conferences, and publishes an internationally
recognised journal, Social History of Medicine. The Society offers a range of bene-
fits, including reduced-price admission to conferences and discounts on SSHM
books, to its members. Individuals wishing to learn more about the Society are
invited to contact the series editors through the publisher.
The Society took the decision to launch ‘Studies in the Social History of
Medicine’, in association with Routledge, in 1989, in order to provide an
outlet for some of the latest research in the field. Since that time, the series
has expanded significantly under a number of series editors, and now
includes both edited collections and monographs. Individuals wishing to
submit proposals are invited to contact the series editors in the first instance.
1 Nutrition in Britain
Science, scientists and politics in the twentieth century
Edited by David F. Smith
2 Migrants, Minorities and Health
Historical and contemporary studies
Edited by Lara Marks and Michael Worboys
3 From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency
Historical perspectives on people with learning disabilities
Edited by David Wright and Anne Digby
4 Midwives, Society and Childbirth
Debates and controversies in the modern period
Edited by Hilary Marland and Anne Marie Rafferty
5 Illness and Healing Alternatives in Western Europe
Edited by Marijke Gijswit-Hofstra, Hilary Maarland and Has de Waardt
6 Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe 1500–1700
Edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham
7 The Locus of Care
Families, communities, institutions, and the provision of welfare since
antiquity
Edited by Peregrine Horden and Richard Smith
8 Race, Science and Medicine, 1700–1960
Edited by Waltraud Ernst and Bernard Harris
9 Insanity, Institutions and Society, 1800–1914
Edited by Bill Forsythe and Joseph Melling
10 Food, Science, Policy and Regulation in the Twentieth Century
International and comparative perspectives
Edited by David F. Smith and Jim Phillips
11 Sex, Sin and Suffering
Venereal disease and European society since 1870
Edited by Roger Davidson and Lesley A. Hall
12 The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19
New perspectives
Edited by Howard Phillips and David Killingray
13 Plural Medicine, Tradition and Modernity, 1800–2000
Edited by Waltraud Ernst
14 Innovations in Health and Medicine
Diffusion and resistance in the twentieth century
Edited by Jenny Stanton
15 Contagion
Historical and cultural studies
Edited by Alison Bashford and Claire Hooker
16 Medicine, Health and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1600–2000
Edited by Steve Sturdy
17 Medicine and Colonial Identity
Edited by Mary P. Sutphen and Bridie Andrews
18 New Directions in Nursing History
Edited by Barbara E. Mortimer and Susan McGann
19 Medicine, the Market and Mass Media
Producing health in the twentieth century
Edited by Virginia Berridge and Kelly Loughlin
20 The Politics of Madness
The state, insanity and society in England, 1845–1914
Joseph Melling and Bill Forsythe
21 The Risks of Medical Innovation
Risk perception and assessment in historical context
Edited by Thomas Schlich and Ulrich Tröhler
22 Mental Illness and Learning Disability since 1850
Finding a place for mental disorder in the United Kingdom
Edited by Pamela Dale and Joseph Melling
23 Britain and the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic
A dark epilogue
Niall Johnson
24 Financing Medicine
The British experience since 1750
Edited by Martin Gorsky and Sally Sheard
25 Social Histories of Disability and Deformity
Edited by David M. Turner and Kevin Stagg
26 Histories of the Normal and the Abnormal
Social and cultural histories of norms and normativity
Edited by Waltraud Ernst
Also available in the Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine series:
Reassessing Foucault
Power, medicine and the body
Edited by Colin Jones and Roy Porter
Histories of the Normal and
the Abnormal
Social and cultural histories of norms and
normativity
Edited by Waltraud Ernst
First published 2006
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2006 Selection and editorial matter, Waltraud Ernst; individual
chapters, contributors
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN10: 0-415-36843-X (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-02825-2 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-36843-8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-02825-4 (ebk)
Contents
List of figures ix
List of contributors xi
Acknowledgements xiv
1 The normal and the abnormal: reflections on norms and
normativity 1
WALTRAUD ERNST
2 Invisible friends: questioning the representation of the
courtdwarf in Hapsburg Spain 26
JANET RAVENSCROFT
3 From ‘monstrous’ to ‘abnormal’: the case of conjoined
twins in the nineteenth century 53
SARAH MITCHELL
4 Eccentric lives: character, characters and curiosities in
Britain,c.1760–1900 73
JAMES GREGORY
5 Constructing the common type: physiognomic norms
and the notion of ‘civic usefulness’, from Lavater to
Galton 101
LUCY HARTLEY
6 Norms and violations: ugliness and abnormality in
caricatures of Monsieur Mayeux 122
NICOLA COTTON
viii Contents
7 Made to measure? Tailoring and the ‘normal’ body in
nineteenth-century France 142
ALISON MATTHEWS DAVID
8 ‘A masculine mythology suppressing and distorting all
the facts’: British women contesting the concept of the
male-as-norm, 1870–1930 165
LESLEY A. HALL
9 Interpreting abnormal psychology in the late nineteenth
century: William James’s spiritual crisis 183
FRANCIS NEARY
10 Can kinship be designed and still be normal? The
curious case of child adoption 205
ELLEN HERMAN
11 Flexible norms? From patients’ values to physicians’
standards 225
CHRISTIANE SINDING
12 A matter of degree: the normalisation of hypertension,
c.1940–2000 245
CARSTEN TIMMERMANN
13 Deviant roles, normal lives: why every piazza needs its
own‘madman’ 262
SARA BERGSTRESSER
Subject index 282
Name index 285
Figures
2.1 Cardinal Granvelle’s Dwarf(Anthonis Mor, c.1550) 37
2.2 Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia and Magdalena Ruiz(Alonso
SánchezCoello, c.1585–8) 41
2.3 Las Meninas(Diego Velázquez, 1656) 45
3.1 Chang and Eng, the original Siamese Twins, represented in
anidealised Oriental landscape 57
4.1 ‘Chevalier Desseasau’, from The Book of Wonderful
Characters 75
4.2 Title page of The Book of Wonderful Characters, Memoirs and
Anecdotes of Remarkable and Eccentric Persons in All Ages and
Countries 79
5.1 Illustration from Johann Caspar Lavater, ‘On the Harmony
betweenMoral and Corporeal Beauty’ 107
5.2 Frontispiece from Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human
Faculty and Its Development 114
6.1 ‘Mr Mayeux, a life drawing by Hippolyte Robillard’ 129
6.2 ‘The famous Mayeux: not stuffed, but alive. You will see
him tie his shoelaces without bending down. Go in and see,
comeand see, come up and see, you will see...’ 130
6.3 ‘Yes Mrs Mayeux, I received the votes of my fellow citizens,
I have been elected ... I bloody deserved it too!’ 131
6.4 ‘Out of the question, my dear. I’m on duty now ... Later
perhaps...’ 132
6.5 ‘Bloody hell, I think those sly young rascals are making fun
of me and drawing a caricature of me!’ 134
6.6 ‘Vous n’êtes pas grand, mon cher!’ 135
7.1 The interior of an eighteenth-century tailor’s workshop 145
7.2 Illustration from George Delas, Le Somatomètre 149
7.3 Honoré Daumier, ‘The Military Review Board’ 154
7.4 Illustration from Alexis Lavigne, Méthode du tailleur
(TailoringMethod) 155