The electrified artist: Edvard Munch's demons, treatments, and sketch of an electrotherapy session (1908-1909).

In 1908-1909, Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), best remembered for The Scream (1893), spent eight months under Daniel Jacobson's care in a private nerve clinic in Copenhagen. Munch was suffering from alcohol abuse, and his signs and symptoms included auditory hallucinations, persecutory delusions, paresthesias, paralyses, violent mood swings, depression, loss of control, fatigue, and the loss of his basic ability to take care of himself. He was treated with rest, a fortifying diet, massages, baths, fresh air, limited exercise, and nonconvulsive electrotherapy. After he had settled in, Jacobson allowed Munch to draw, paint, and engage in photography. Munch responded with a portrait of Jacobson and a small but intriguing sketch of himself at one of his electrotherapy sessions. In this article, we examine the circumstances that brought Munch to Jacobson's clinic and his therapies, with particular attention to electrotherapies. In so doing, we hope to provide a more complete picture of Munch's crisis in 1908, his nerve doctor, the rationales for medical electricity and other treatments he endured, and Scandinavian psychiatry at this moment in time.

"An army of reformed drunkards and clergymen": the medicalization of habitual drunkenness, 1857-1910.

Historians have recognized that men with drinking problems were not simply the passive subjects of medical reform and urban social control in Gilded Age and Progressive Era America but also actively shaped the partial medicalization of habitual drunkenness. The role played by evangelical religion in constituting their agency and in the historical process of medicalization has not been adequately explored, however. A post-Civil War evangelical reform culture supported institutions that treated inebriates along voluntary, religious lines and lionized former drunkards who publicly promoted a spiritual cure for habitual drunkenness. This article documents the historical development and characteristic practices of this reform culture, the voluntarist treatment institutions associated with it, and the hostile reaction that developed among medical reformers who sought to treat intemperance as a disease called inebriety. Those physicians' attempts to promote therapeutic coercion for inebriates as medical orthodoxy and to deprive voluntarist institutions of public recognition failed, as did their efforts to characterize reformed drunkards who endorsed voluntary cures as suffering from delusions arising from their disease. Instead, evangelical traditions continued to empower reformed drunkards to publicize their own views on their malady which laid the groundwork for continued public interest in alcoholics' personal narratives in the twentieth century. Meanwhile, institutions that accommodated inebriates' voluntarist preferences proliferated after 1890, marginalizing the medical inebriety movement and its coercive therapeutics.

A historical review of perceptions of key aspects of spirituality and religion within alcoholics anonymous.

This historical research aimed to develop an accurate perception of the role of spirituality and religion within the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. Primary and secondary sources were reviewed. The study identified that Bill W. and Dr. Bob established the format for the support group based on the ideas of William James, which formed the base for the Oxford Groups. Alcoholics Anonymous was clearly viewed as a spiritual group and not a religion. The review also showed that the two founders had each experienced one of the two types of spiritual awakenings that James had addressed. These findings will help nurses clarify their own perceptions of this organization so they may accurately educate individuals who they are encouraging to participate in this program while recovering from an addiction.

[E. M. Jellinek - a "free floating" alcohologist]. / E.M. Jellinek, a ,,szabadon lebego" alkohologus.

This paper is divulging unpublished materials based on recent research on E. M. Jellinek who was the father of the scientific-medical agenda of alcohology. Results of our research in Hungarian archives not only open still unexplored realm for alcohol studies but also evoke fresh readings of its history. A good half of Jellinek's life has been uncharted and still contains terrain unbeknown to us. Following some infamous activity he fled from Hungary on the very same day (June 4, 1920) when the country lost two-thirds of its territory. After a ten-year roaming Jellinek's private Odyssey came to an end. He has started living his personal "American dream" in the country of his mother through the impersonal dream of alcohology, which was going to aspire to transform itself from a moral movement to an emerging interdisciplinary field of medicine. Jellinek had chosen to be uprooted and he managed to conceal his past in Budapest including his trans-generational past quite effectively. Authors have made an attempt to interpret the ambivalent tale and controversial personality of Jellinek embedded in the progress of alcohol studies.

[Dr Anto Maric (1897-1982): a journey from alcohology and dermatovenereology to psychiatry and balneology]. / Dr. Anto Maric (1897.-1982.) -od alkohologije i dermatovenerologije preko psihijatrije do balneologije.

Dr Anto Maric (1897-1982) was born in Vuksic in Bosnia. He completed medical studies in Vienna and Prague. He published his results from the Department for dermatovenerology at Sarajevo State Hospital, Bosnia. He engaged himself in the movement against alcoholism, too. Later he moved to the Neuropsychiatry ward in Belgrade and was appointed manager in a new psychiatry hospital in Kovin, Serbia. For years he had been a community physician in Stanisic in Vojvodina. During the Second World War, he worked in the psychiatric hospital Vrapce at the outskirts of Zagreb, Croatia and after the war he became the head of a thermal spa in Srebrenica, Bosnia. After specialisation in balneology, he came to Rijeka to overlook the reconstruction of a thermal spa near Buzet in Istria. He made use of his long experience in dermatovenerology, neuropsychiatry and balneology to promote the importance of the unity between physical and psychological for maintaining human health.

Traditional Chinese medicine for treatment of alcoholism: from ancient to modern.

Alcohol has long been used as a daily beverage in China and around the world. It is a medicinal substance with various biological activities. In fact, alcohol has played an important role in the development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), within which it is considered as the earliest exhilarant and anaesthetic. Yet, as a substance with great potency of misuse and addiction, the consumption of alcohol can lead to serious damage to individual health and the society. Over the past 20 years, alcohol abuse or alcoholism has become an increasing social problem in China along with the rapid economic development. China, the country of origin for TCM, has accumulated abundant clinical experience in the treatment of alcoholism with its ancient medicine. In the present research, we have summarized clinical and primary studies concerning various remedies of TCM for alcohol abuse, including herbal components (such as Kudzu/Pueraria Lobata, Pediculus melo, Hypericumpperforatum L.), decoctions and acupuncture.

Moral transgression, disease and holistic health in the Livingstonia Mission in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Malawi.

This article examines ideas of morality and health, and connections between moral transgression and disease in both Scottish missionary and Central African thought in the context of the Livingstonia Mission of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in Malawi during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By concentrating on debates, conflicts and co-operation between missionaries and Africans over the key issues of beer drinking and sexual morality, this article explores the emergence of a new "moral hygiene" among African Christian communities in Northern Malawi.

[Fragments of the history of healthcare for users of alcohol and other drugs in Brazil: from Justice to Public Health]. / Fragmentos da história da atenção à saúde para usuários de álcool e outras drogas no Brasil: da Justiça à Saúde Pública.

The purpose of this article is to identify, factors that could be associated to the establishment of the country's health policy for users of alcohol and other drugs in 2003. It makes particular use of semi-structured interviews, as well as a study of the literature and documents. The article shows that the Brazilian State's approach to alcohol and drugs emerged in the early 20th century with the creation of a legal and institutional apparatus designed to control the sale and use of drugs, justified by the need to assure public security and public health. This apparatus permitted the development of healthcare practices for drug users based on the penalties it proposed. The article concludes that even though the rationales behind legal and public health measures do not always coincide, some of the practices that emerged in the legal sphere did help provide the conditions needed for the creation of a health policy for alcohol and drug users in Brazil in 2003.

[Social diseases in the interwar period in the Lwów Province]. / Choroby spoleczne w okresie miedzywojennym w województwie lwowskim.

The health state of Polish society in the interwar period was unsatisfactory. In particular, the danger was posed by social diseases, understood to be serious diseases of prolonged type, widespread among people. The diseases included: tuberculosis, trachoma, venereal diseases, infancy diseases causing a large scale infant mortality, excessive mortality among mothers in the peripartum (around birth) period, alcoholism, mental diseases, goiter, cancers, and occupational diseases. Because of the character of the social diseases, fighting them was long, and the interactions aimed not only at the ill ones, but also at their environment. The main role in this process was played by social ambulatories, whose chief task was prophylaxis. The actions differed depending on individual diseases. The personnel consisted of doctors, social nurses, school hygienists, sanitary supervisors, and social keepers. There were undertaken coordinated actions, supported by the state, provincial and district self-governments, and social organizations. Regulations governing the fight against social diseases were created. They mainly applied to organizing institutions and obligatory registration of diseases. Thanks to cyclically growing number of institutions, personnel trainings and sanctioning of the fight against social diseases, the epidemiologic situation improved noticeably towards the end of the period.

[The original paradigm of dependence - historical and cultural aspects]. / Das ursprüngliche Paradigma der Abhängigkeit - historische und kulturelle Aspekte.

Repeated drunkenness became a contradiction in terms of a healthy and rational life style in the context of the Enlightenment in the 18th century. Corresponding to the self-referential understanding of man as an independent and rational being repeated drunkenness could not longer be understood as a conscious decision or a vice. The central point of the new paradigm of dependence was the installation of a special urge by a specific chronic chemical traumatization. But this original paradigm also required the acceptance of the human individual as a depth-structured being and shows influence by the Brownianism, therefore it is also an unspecific concept. This understanding corresponds with the modern anthropology, in which the human being is understood two-fold: on the one hand his consciousness and mind, on the other hand his unconsciousness, body and world around.

Abuso de alcoólicos, alcoolismo e problemas no trabalho / Abuse of alcohol, and alcohol problems at work

O presente trabalho faz um levantamento bibliográfico da problemática do consumo abusivo de alcool e alcoolismo, analisando sua associação com problemas na área trabalhista. Aprofunda-se na análise das causas e fatos que participam da genesi e exacerbação de tais problemas buscando elaborar conceitos e diretrizes que possam dirimi-los ou minorizá-los. Vale-se também da observação e frequência de reuniões e palestras do Programa de Recuperação dos Alcoólicos Anônimos para subsidiar tais análises. Destas, pode-se depreender que o alcoolismo e o abuso de alcoólicos, além de outras drogas tem tido grande participação nas causas de quedas de produtividade, absenteísmo, acidentes de trabalho, invalidez e aposentadorias precoces. Participam também na gênese do alcoolismo e dos problemas trabalhistas relacionados, o stress, a ansiedade, depressões e outras angústias geradas pelo próprio trabalho e pelas condições ambientais, sociais, econômicas, familiares e culturais do trabalhador. Analisamos as linhas mestras de um Programa de Assistência ao Empregado que atua amplamente nesta seara. Analisamos ainda a estrutura do AA e seu funcionamento, recomendando a sua utilização de forma colaborativa, através dos seus comitês trabalhando com os outros - CTO. Finalmente concluimos que o homem e seus problemas não podem ser analisados separados de seu ambiente, devendo ser abordado de forma holística, sensível e abrangente.

Mind and mood in modern art, II: Depressive disorders, spirituality, and early deaths in the abstract expressionist artists of the New York School.

This article documents the high prevalence of mood disorders in a group of 15 of the mid-twentieth-century Abstract Expressionist artists of the New York School. These artists, using the technique of psychic automatism (based on free association) in order to reveal unconscious material, created a psychologically and spiritually significant art that addressed the mythic themes of creation, birth, life, and death. Over 50% of the 15 artists in this group had some form of psychopathology, predominantly mood disorders and preoccupation with death, often compounded by alcohol abuse. At least 40% sought treatment and 20% were hospitalized for psychiatric problems. Two committed suicide; two died in single-vehicle accidents while driving; and two others had fathers who killed themselves. Many of these artists died early deaths, and close to 50% of the group (seven of 15) were dead before the age of 60. The material presented in this article suggests the following formulation and hypothesis. Depression inevitably leads to a turning inward and to the painful reexamination of the purpose of living and the possibility of dying. Thus, by bringing the artist into direct and lonely confrontation with the ultimate existential question, whether to live or to die, depression may have put these artists in touch with the inexplicable mystery that lies at the heart of the "tragic and timeless" art that the Abstract Expressionists aspired to produce.