19th century case of pica eating disorder

#19th century case of pica eating disorder full

Many women who ultimately became saints engaged in self-starvation, including Saint Hedwig of Andechs in the thirteenth century and Catherine of Siena in the fourteenth century. By the thirteenth century, it was increasingly common for women to participate in religious life and to even be named as saints by the Catholic Church. This is sometimes referred to as anorexia mirabilis. Of interest in terms of anorexia nervosa is the medieval practice of self-starvation by women, including some young women, in the name of religious piety and purity.

Early descriptions 13th and 14th Centuries: Saint Catherine of Siena & Saint Hedwig of Andechs or Silesia The importance of discriminating such cases in practice is obvious otherwise prognosis will be erroneous, and treatment misdirected. I prefer, however, the more general term 'nervosa,' since the disease occurs in males as well as females, and is probably rather central than peripheral. We might call the state hysterical without committing ourselves to the etymological value of the word, or maintaining that the subjects of it have the common symptoms of hysteria. The use, and subsequent abandonment, of the term hysterica is of interest, since in the Victorian era the term was interpreted as applying to female behaviour.

In a paper published in 1873, French physician Ernest-Charles Lasègue published a paper entitled De l’Anorexie Hystérique. In an earlier address, in 1868, Gull referred to the condition as Apepsia hysterica, but subsequently amended this to Anorexia hysterica and then to Anorexia nervosa. The term anorexia is of Greek origin: an- (ἀν-, prefix denoting negation) and orexis (ὄρεξις, 'appetite'), thus translating to 'nervous absence of appetite'. The term anorexia nervosa was established in 1873 by Queen Victoria’s personal physician, Sir William Gull. A further important event was the death of the popular singer Karen Carpenter in 1983, which prompted widespread ongoing media coverage of eating disorders. This book created a wider awareness of anorexia nervosa among lay readers. In the same year, French physician Ernest-Charles Lasègue similarly published details of a number of cases in a paper entitled De l’Anorexie Hystérique.Īwareness of the condition was largely limited to the medical profession until the latter part of the 20th century, when German-American psychoanalyst Hilde Bruch published her popular work The Golden Cage: the Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa in 1978. In 1873, Sir William Gull, one of Queen Victoria's personal physicians, published a seminal paper which established the term anorexia nervosa and provided a number of detailed case descriptions and treatments. However it was not until the late 19th century that anorexia nervosa was to be widely accepted by the medical profession as a recognized condition. The earliest medical descriptions of anorexic illnesses are generally credited to English physician Richard Morton, in 1689. Others link the emergence of anorexia to the distinctive presence of an extreme fear of being overweight despite being underweight which emerged in the second half of the 19th century and was first observed by Jean Martin Charcot and other French psychiatrists at the Salpetrière A number of well known historical figures, including Catherine of Siena and Mary, Queen of Scots are believed to have suffered from the condition. Some claim that the history of anorexia nervosa begins with descriptions of religious fasting dating from the Hellenistic era and continuing into the medieval period. The case was entitled 'Un cas d'anorexie hystérique' (A case of hysteria anorexia). Two images of an anorexic female patient published in 1900 in 'Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpêtrière'. ( August 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Several templates and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as Reflinks ( documentation), reFill ( documentation) and Citation bot ( documentation).

#19th century case of pica eating disorder full

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