When art therapy went chemical: Alfred Bader, pharmacology, and art brut, c.1950-1970s.

This article analyzes how psychopharmacology transformed the relationship between art and psychiatry. It outlines a novel genealogy of art therapy, repositioning its origins in the context of evolving clinical practices and discourses on mind-altering drugs. Evaluating the use of psychotropic drugs in connection with psychopathology of art in the first half of the twentieth century, the article then focuses on two post-Second World War experiments involving psilocybin conducted by psychiatrist Alfred Bader and pharmacologist Roland Fischer. Illustrating how consciousness was foregrounded in discussions about mental health and illness, the examples showcase how psychotherapists increasingly sought to articulate art brut and modernist aesthetics in a neurobiological fashion to define madness as a social disease.

Aprendendo com histórias: narrativas de experiências de uma cidade com a loucura / Learning from stories: narratives of experiences in a city with madness / Aprendiendo con historias: narrativas de experiencias de una ciudad con la locura

A cidade de Cariacica-ES foi sede do primeiro hospital psiquiátrico público do estado-local que produziu marcas na memória de uma cidade, que se acostumou a manter a loucura à distância, trancafiada nos muros do manicômio. Com as lutas provenientes da Reforma Psiquiátrica, os manicômios tiveram seus muros abalados e a proposta de um cuidado territorial começou a ser posta em prática: a loucura passou a habitar outros espaços da cidade. O presente artigo foi construído a partir de uma experiência investigativa que utilizou como método a História Oral, no intuito de conhecer, a partir de relatos de experiências de moradores e profissionais da saúde mental, os modos como a loucura foi acolhida em Cariacica-ES para além do espaço manicomial, a partir dos Serviços Residenciais Terapêuticos, após a abertura dos muros físicos do antigo Hospital Adauto Botelho.

The city of Cariacica-ES was the headquarters of the first public psychiatric hospital in the state, a place that produced marks in the memory of a city used to seeing madness far away, excluded and locked in the walls of the mental institution. With the struggles arising from the Psychiatric Reform, the asylums had their walls knocked down, and the proposal for territorial care began to be put into practice: madness began to inhabit other spaces in the city. This article was made from an investigative experience which used Oral History as a method to know, from the experiences of residents and mental health professionals, how madness was welcomed in Cariacica city beyond a mental asylum space, and from the Therapeutic Residential Services, after the opening of the physical walls of the former Adauto Botelho Hospital. (AU)

La ciudad de Cariacica, situada en el estado de Espírito Santo, fue sede del primer hospital psiquiátrico público, un lugar que dejó huellas en la memoria de una ciudad acostumbrada a ver la locura desde la distancia, encerrada en los muros del hospital. En virtud de las luchas surgidas de la Reforma Psiquiátrica, los manicomios tuvieron sus muros derribados y se empezó a poner en práctica la propuesta del cuidado territorial, la locura comenzó a habitar otros espacios de la ciudad, componiéndolos. Este artículo se construyó a partir de una experiencia investigativa que utilizó la Historia Oral como método, con el fin de conocer, a partir de relatos de experiencias de residentes locales y profesionales de la salud mental, cómo la locura fue acogida por la ciudad, más allá del espacio hospitalario, a partir de los Servicios Residenciales Terapéuticos, tras la apertura de los muros físicos del antiguo Hospital Adauto Botelho. (AU)

Nascimento e estabelecimento da assistência psiquiátrica em São Paulo: a história de um lugar para os alienados / Birth and establishment of psychiatric care in São Paulo: the history of a place for the alienated / Nacimiento y establecimiento de la atención psiquiátrica en São Paulo: la historia de un lugar para los alienados

Este artigo de ensaio teórico dedica-se a discutir a trajetória da assistência psiquiátrica no estado de São Paulo sob a perspectiva do primeiro local destinado à gestão médica da loucura. São abordados os aspectos gerais do início da assistência psiquiátrica brasileira; o surgimento desta assistência no estado de São Paulo; o estabelecimento do asilamento científico a partir do Hospício de Juquery como novo local para o cuidado dos alienados e o tratamento moral como terapêutica adotada; a psiquiatria higiênica do Juquery, seus desdobramentos e outras terapêuticas; e, por fim, a descentralização da assistência a partir da privatização e novas abordagens político-sociais aos pacientes hospitalizados. (AU)

This theoretical essay article is dedicated to discussing the trajectory of psychiatric care in the state of São Paulo from the perspective of the first place destined to the medical management of madness. The general aspects of the beginning of Brazilian psychiatric care are addressed; the emergence of this assistance in the state of São Paulo; the establishment of scientific asylum from the Hospício de Juquery as a new place for the care of the alienated and the moral treatment as adopted therapy; Juquery's hygienic psychiatry, its developments and other therapeutics; and, finally, the decentralization of assistance based on privatization and new political-social approaches to hospitalized patients. (AU)

Este artículo de ensayo teórico está dedicado a discutir la trayectoria de la atención psiquiátrica en el estado de São Paulo desde la perspectiva del primer lugar destinado a la gestión médica de la locura. Se abordan los aspectos generales del inicio de la atención psiquiátrica brasileña; el surgimiento de esta assistência en el estado de São Paulo; el establecimiento del asilo científico del Hospicio de Juquery como un nuevo lugar para el cuidado de los alienados y el tratamiento moral como terapia adoptada; La psiquiatría higiénica de Juquery, sus desarrollos y otros terapéutica; y, finalmente, la descentralización de la assistência basada em la privatización y nuevos enfoques político-sociales a los pacientes hospitalizados. (AU)

[Puerperal insanity:a comparative reading of Argentina and Colombia, 1880-1950]. / Las locuras puerperales: una lectura comparada entre Argentina y Colombia, 1880-1950.

Our goal is to understand the appearance and spread of forms of puerperal insanity in Argentina and Colombia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as well as their decline or disappearance around the 1940s. This is a historical and hermeneutical study, which uses the concepts of "field of visibility" and "ecological niche" for a transitory disease. There was no correlation between pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium and the state of delirium that led to commitment, which was attributed to predisposing factors; furthermore, forms of puerperal insanity were nosographically distinct due to their unique etiopathogeneses. As clinical cases of puerperal insanity started to emerge, the disciplinary field of obstetrics converged with psychiatry, with the former exerting more weight.

El objetivo es comprender la aparición y propagación de locuras puerperales en Argentina y Colombia, a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, así como su decadencia o desvanecimiento hacia la década de 1940-1950. Investigación histórico-hermenéutica, según los conceptos de "campo de visibilidad" y "nicho ecológico" de una enfermedad transitoria. No existió correlación entre embarazo, parto y puerperio con el estado delirante que motivaba la internación, atribuido a factores predisponentes y, asimismo, tuvieron una autonomía nosográfica en virtud de etiopatogenias singulares. Al tiempo que empezó a emerger el tipo clínico locura puerperal, se entrecruzaron el campo disciplinar de la obstetricia con el alienismo, con una mayor preponderancia del primero.

Las locuras puerperales: una lectura comparada entre Argentina y Colombia, 1880-1950 / Puerperal insanity: a comparative reading of Argentina and Colombia, 1880-1950

Resumen El objetivo es comprender la aparición y propagación de locuras puerperales en Argentina y Colombia, a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, así como su decadencia o desvanecimiento hacia la década de 1940-1950. Investigación histórico-hermenéutica, según los conceptos de "campo de visibilidad" y "nicho ecológico" de una enfermedad transitoria. No existió correlación entre embarazo, parto y puerperio con el estado delirante que motivaba la internación, atribuido a factores predisponentes y, asimismo, tuvieron una autonomía nosográfica en virtud de etiopatogenias singulares. Al tiempo que empezó a emerger el tipo clínico locura puerperal, se entrecruzaron el campo disciplinar de la obstetricia con el alienismo, con una mayor preponderancia del primero.

Abstract Our goal is to understand the appearance and spread of forms of puerperal insanity in Argentina and Colombia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as well as their decline or disappearance around the 1940s. This is a historical and hermeneutical study, which uses the concepts of "field of visibility" and "ecological niche" for a transitory disease. There was no correlation between pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium and the state of delirium that led to commitment, which was attributed to predisposing factors; furthermore, forms of puerperal insanity were nosographically distinct due to their unique etiopathogeneses. As clinical cases of puerperal insanity started to emerge, the disciplinary field of obstetrics converged with psychiatry, with the former exerting more weight.

The Degenerating Sex: Female Sterilisation, Medical Authority and Racial Purity in Catholic Brazil.

This article examines female sterilisation practices in early twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It argues that the medical profession, particularly obstetricians and psychiatrists, used debates over the issue to solidify its moral and political standing during two political moments of Brazilian history: when the Brazilian government separated church and state in the 1890s and when Getúlio Vargas's authoritarian regime of the late 1930s renewed alliances with the Catholic church. Shifting notions of gender, race, and heredity further shaped these debates. In the late nineteenth century, a unified medical profession believed that female sterilisation caused psychiatric degeneration in women. By the 1930s, however, the arrival of eugenics caused a divergence amongst physicians. Psychiatrists began supporting eugenic sterilisation to prevent degeneration - both psychiatric and racial. Obstetricians, while arguing that sterilisation no longer caused mental disturbances in women, rejected it as a eugenic practice in regard to race. For obstetricians, the separation of sex from motherhood was more dangerous than any racial 'impurities', both phenotypical and psychiatric. At the same time, a revitalised Brazilian Catholic church rejected eugenics and sterilisation point blank, and its renewed ties with the Vargas regime blocked the medical implementation of any eugenic sterilisation laws. Brazilian women, nonetheless, continued to access the procedure, regardless of the surrounding legal and medical proscriptions.

Owning our madness: Contributions of Jamaican psychiatry to decolonizing Global Mental Health.

The contentious debate on evidence-based Global Mental Health care is challenged by the primary mental health program of Jamaica. Political independence in 1962 ushered in the postcolonial Jamaican Government and the deinstitutionalization of the country's only mental hospital along with a plethora of mental health public policy innovations. The training locally of mental health professionals catalyzed institutional change. The mental health challenge for descendants of African people enslaved in Jamaica is to reverse the psychological impact of 500 years of European racism and colonial oppression and create a blueprint for the decolonization of GMH. The core innovations were the gradual downsizing and dismantling of the colonial mental hospital and the establishment of a novel community mental health initiative. The successful management of acute psychosis in open medical wards of general hospitals and a Diversion at the Point of Arrest Programme (DAPA) resulted in the reduction of stigma and the assimilation of mental health care into medicine in Jamaica. Successful decentralization has led to unmasking underlying social psychopathology and the subsequent development of primary prevention therapeutic programs based on psychohistoriographic cultural therapy and the Dream-A-World Cultural Therapy interventions. The Jamaican experience suggests that diversity in GMH must be approached not simply as a demographic fact but with postcolonial strategies that counter the historical legacy of structural violence.

[Know-what and know-how in the Hospital-Asilo of Oliva (1914-1950): the Adela case]. / El saber ver y el saber hacer en el hospital-asilo de Oliva (1914-1950): el caso Adela.

This paper analyze multiple experiences about the functioning of the first Open-Door in Argentina's inside, the "Asilo Colonia Regional Mixto de Alienados Oliva", created in the province of Cordoba in 1914. We approach a set of clinical histories and specialized publications of the institutional bulletin, deepening in theoretical and therapeutic processes articulated during the first decade of hospitalization of a patient who lived in Oliva most of her adult life. This study case questions the relevance given to this madhouse as a space of reclusion and social control. We show that, in a context of crisis about institutional resources and transformation into psychiatric models, the configuration of know-what and know-how of these alienists did not constitute a monolithic authority, accounting for how the behaviors of patients and their relatives, values and social uses defined types of income, diagnoses and treatment possibilities.

En este trabajo analizamos múltiples experiencias en el funcionamiento del primer open-door creado en la provincia de Córdoba, en 1914: el "Asilo Colonia Regional Mixto de Alienados Oliva". Abordamos un conjunto de historias clínicas y publicaciones especializadas del boletín institucional, profundizando en procesos teóricos y terapéuticos articulados durante la primera década de internación de una paciente que vivió en Oliva la mayor parte de su vida adulta. Este estudio de caso, cuestiona la tradicional relevancia otorgada a este manicomio como espacio de reclusión y control social. Mostramos que, en un contexto de constante crisis de los recursos institucionales y de trasformación de los modelos psiquiátricos, la configuración del "saber ver" y el "saber hacer" de estos alienistas no constituyeron una autoridad monolítica, dando cuenta de cómo los comportamientos de los pacientes y sus allegados, los valores y usos sociales definían tipos de ingresos, diagnósticos y posibilidades de tratamiento.

Medicalizing delinquents or turning the mad into criminals?: Practices of alienation and legal medicine in Colombia in the early the 20th century. / ¿Medicalizar al delincuente o hacer del loco un criminal?: Prácticas de alienismo y medicina legal en Colombia a comienzos del siglo XX.

This article analyzes medical-legal associations between madness and criminality in department of Antioquia (Colombia) during the three first decades of 20th century. The analysis was oriented by two overlapping axes: discourses and practices. The ideas of four doctors, generated between 1917 and 1925, were examined in order to identify the theoretical debates that delimited and defined mental illnesses in legal cases. The use of qualified knowledge and their place as experts were analyzed in a judicial case, initiated in 1921, in which theoretical confrontations surfaced among the doctors that debated the possible insanity of the defendant.

Este artículo analiza algunas asociaciones médico-jurídicas entre locura y criminalidad en el departamento de Antioquia (Colombia), en las primeras tres décadas del siglo XX. El análisis se orientó por dos ejes imbricados: el de los discursos y el de las prácticas. Se examinaron las ideas de cuatro médicos, planteadas entre 1917 y 1925, para identificar los debates teóricos desde los cuales se delimitaban y definían las enfermedades mentales en casos judiciales. La puesta en escena del saber de los peritos y su lugar como expertos se analizaron en un caso judicial, que inició en 1921, y en cuyo desarrollo afloraron las confrontaciones teóricas entre los médicos que debatieron sobre la posible locura del acusado.

Casas de Locos: The Treatment of the Mentally Ill in the Hispanic World Before the Enlightenment.

Before the Enlightenment, the mentally ill in the Hispanic world received standard medical care. After the foundation of the first hospital for specific treatment for mentally ill in Valencia in 1409, a number of hospitals opened their doors to patients with mental illness across the Iberian Peninsula during the 15th century. This model of medical care for people with mental illness was carried to America and the Philippines soon after the arrival of the Spaniards. The treatment for the mentally ill in the Hispanic World influenced the development of Pinel's moral treatment and the care of the mentally ill during the Enlightenment. This article will explain the circumstances leading to the foundation of a number of specific hospitals for the mentally ill in the Hispanic territories as well as the kind of care that these patients received at the so-called casas de locos.

Racial degeneration, mental hygiene, and the beginning of Peruvian psychiatry, 1922-1934.

Between 1922 and 1934, three pamphlets and a series of articles on mental hygiene were published in important newspapers in Lima, Peru. Their authors were Hermilio Valdizán and Honorio Delgado, two members of the first generation of psychiatrists in the country. These mass publications aimed to educate the population on what mental illness was, as well as its causes and symptoms. In addition, they sought to promote the figure of the psychiatrist as a specialist in "madness" whose recommendations should be heeded in family life. To that end, these publications contained true cases, related in melodramatic language, in order to reach a broader audience. Beyond their educative intention, these publications used ideas that Peruvian elites held about racial differentiation, because they were aimed at White and mestizo readers and had the express intention of preventing racial "degeneration." The analysis of this primary source material is complemented with other texts by Valdizán that sought to comprehend the manifestations of insanity among Native Peruvians, for which he used degeneration theory to explain the degree of "backwardness" observed among the races that were considered inferior. This article seeks to analyze the viewpoints held on racial differences by the most significant members of Peru's first generation of psychiatrists, in which degeneration theory was key in explaining the differences between human groups and in justifying the superiority of Whites and Western culture in the Peruvian state's mestizo identity initiative. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

[In the middle of the road there was a stone: the history of violence and social suffering among young adults with trajectories of psychiatric hospitalization]. / No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra: a história de violência e sofrimento social de jovens adultos com trajetórias de internação em hospital psiquiátrico.

This article presents the life stories of three young adults with a long history of psychiatric hospitalization who became residents of a psychiatric hospital in Sorocaba (SP), in a region known as a center for the mentally ill. This study analyzes mental health policies and their effects on the lives of these individuals based on discussions about social suffering. Using the participant objectivation technique, these individuals were followed for two years after dehospitalization. The results show that health policy in Sorocaba has been advanced through totalizing and coercive schemes with institutionalization and medicalization comprising the "solution" to some social problems.

São apresentadas as histórias de vida de três jovens adultos, com longo período de internação psiquiátrica, que se tornaram moradores de hospital psiquiátrico em Sorocaba (SP), em uma região caracterizada como polo manicomial. Objetivou-se analisar as políticas de saúde mental e os efeitos de suas ações na vida daqueles sujeitos, tendo como premissas as discussões sobre sofrimento social. Por meio da "objetivação participante", acompanharam-se, durante dois anos, suas trajetórias após o processo de desospitalização. Como resultado, aponta-se que a política de saúde naquele município tem sido promovida por meio de esquemas totalizantes e coercitivos, em que a institucionalização da vida, com a sua medicalização, constitui a "resposta" para alguns problemas sociais.

No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra: a história de violência e sofrimento social de jovens adultos com trajetórias de internação em hospital psiquiátrico / In the middle of the road there was a stone: the history of violence and social suffering among young adults with trajectories of psychiatric hospitalization

Resumo São apresentadas as histórias de vida de três jovens adultos, com longo período de internação psiquiátrica, que se tornaram moradores de hospital psiquiátrico em Sorocaba (SP), em uma região caracterizada como polo manicomial. Objetivou-se analisar as políticas de saúde mental e os efeitos de suas ações na vida daqueles sujeitos, tendo como premissas as discussões sobre sofrimento social. Por meio da "objetivação participante", acompanharam-se, durante dois anos, suas trajetórias após o processo de desospitalização. Como resultado, aponta-se que a política de saúde naquele município tem sido promovida por meio de esquemas totalizantes e coercitivos, em que a institucionalização da vida, com a sua medicalização, constitui a "resposta" para alguns problemas sociais.

Abstract This article presents the life stories of three young adults with a long history of psychiatric hospitalization who became residents of a psychiatric hospital in Sorocaba (SP), in a region known as a center for the mentally ill. This study analyzes mental health policies and their effects on the lives of these individuals based on discussions about social suffering. Using the participant objectivation technique, these individuals were followed for two years after dehospitalization. The results show that health policy in Sorocaba has been advanced through totalizing and coercive schemes with institutionalization and medicalization comprising the "solution" to some social problems.

The theory of symptom complexes, mind and madness.

Kahlbaum's seminal approach to symptom complexes, as opposed to disease entities, is still relevant. Many psychopathologists have approached mental symptom complexes without prejudging them as necessary physical deficits or diseases, favouring a broader dimensional and anthropological view of mental disorders. Discussions of symptom complexes gained prominence in psychiatry in the early twentieth century - through Hoche - and in the period leading up to World War II - through Carl Schneider. Their works, alongside those of Kraepelin, Bumke, Kehrer, Jaspers and others, are reviewed in relation to the theme of symptom complexes, the mind, and mental disorders. A particular feature of symptom complexes is their relationship to aspects of the normal mind and how this affects clinical manifestations. It is further suggested that symptom complexes might offer a useful bridge between the psychic and the biological in theories of the mind.

¿Medicalizar al delincuente o hacer del loco un criminal?: Prácticas de alienismo y medicina legal en Colombia a comienzos del siglo XX / Medicalizing delinquents or turning the mad into criminals?: Practices of alienation and legal medicine in Colombia in the early the 20th century

RESUMEN Este artículo analiza algunas asociaciones médico-jurídicas entre locura y criminalidad en el departamento de Antioquia (Colombia), en las primeras tres décadas del siglo XX. El análisis se orientó por dos ejes imbricados: el de los discursos y el de las prácticas. Se examinaron las ideas de cuatro médicos, planteadas entre 1917 y 1925, para identificar los debates teóricos desde los cuales se delimitaban y definían las enfermedades mentales en casos judiciales. La puesta en escena del saber de los peritos y su lugar como expertos se analizaron en un caso judicial, que inició en 1921, y en cuyo desarrollo afloraron las confrontaciones teóricas entre los médicos que debatieron sobre la posible locura del acusado.

ABSTRACT This article analyzes medical-legal associations between madness and criminality in department of Antioquia (Colombia) during the three first decades of 20th century. The analysis was oriented by two overlapping axes: discourses and practices. The ideas of four doctors, generated between 1917 and 1925, were examined in order to identify the theoretical debates that delimited and defined mental illnesses in legal cases. The use of qualified knowledge and their place as experts were analyzed in a judicial case, initiated in 1921, in which theoretical confrontations surfaced among the doctors that debated the possible insanity of the defendant.

El saber ver y el saber hacer en el hospital-asilo de Oliva (1914-1950): el caso Adela / Know-what and know-how in the Hospital-Asilo of Oliva (1914-1950): the Adela case

RESUMEN En este trabajo analizamos múltiples experiencias en el funcionamiento del primer open-door creado en la provincia de Córdoba, en 1914: el "Asilo Colonia Regional Mixto de Alienados Oliva". Abordamos un conjunto de historias clínicas y publicaciones especializadas del boletín institucional, profundizando en procesos teóricos y terapéuticos articulados durante la primera década de internación de una paciente que vivió en Oliva la mayor parte de su vida adulta. Este estudio de caso, cuestiona la tradicional relevancia otorgada a este manicomio como espacio de reclusión y control social. Mostramos que, en un contexto de constante crisis de los recursos institucionales y de trasformación de los modelos psiquiátricos, la configuración del "saber ver" y el "saber hacer" de estos alienistas no constituyeron una autoridad monolítica, dando cuenta de cómo los comportamientos de los pacientes y sus allegados, los valores y usos sociales definían tipos de ingresos, diagnósticos y posibilidades de tratamiento.

ABSTRACT This paper analyze multiple experiences about the functioning of the first Open-Door in Argentina's inside, the "Asilo Colonia Regional Mixto de Alienados Oliva", created in the province of Cordoba in 1914. We approach a set of clinical histories and specialized publications of the institutional bulletin, deepening in theoretical and therapeutic processes articulated during the first decade of hospitalization of a patient who lived in Oliva most of her adult life. This study case questions the relevance given to this madhouse as a space of reclusion and social control. We show that, in a context of crisis about institutional resources and transformation into psychiatric models, the configuration of know-what and know-how of these alienists did not constitute a monolithic authority, accounting for how the behaviors of patients and their relatives, values and social uses defined types of income, diagnoses and treatment possibilities.

A assistência psiquiátrica a crianças anormais no Hospital Colônia Sant'Ana (Santa Catarina, Brasil, 1940) / Psychiatric care for abnormal children at the Hospital Colônia Sant'Ana (Santa Catarina, Brazil, 1940s)

Resumo O artigo apresenta pesquisa centrada na assistência psiquiátrica destinada a crianças e jovens ditos anormais em Santa Catarina. Inicialmente, analisa-se o surgimento da ideia de "criança perigosa", ou da categoria "menor", a partir da discussão de Foucault sobre a noção de "indivíduo perigoso", para então abordarem-se as dificuldades apresentadas na institucionalização da minoridade anormal em Santa Catarina. A seguir, são questionados os vínculos existentes entre as teorias que permitem identificar as crianças ditas anormais com as ideias eugênicas. Por fim, problematiza-se a dinâmica institucional que envolvia os menores ditos anormais internados no Hospital Colônia Sant'Ana na década de 1940.

Abstract Research into the psychiatric care for so-called abnormal children and youths in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina is presented. The emergence of the idea of the "dangerous child" or the category of "minor" is discussed, drawing on Foucault's discussion of the notion of the "dangerous individual." This is followed by a presentation of the difficulties faced in the institutionalization of abnormal minors in the aforementioned state. The links between theories that enable so-called abnormal children to be identified and the ideas of eugenics are then questioned. Finally, the institutional dynamics involving so-called abnormal children admitted to the Hospital Colônia Sant'Ana in the 1940s are scrutinized.

[Implicaciones psiquiátricas y neurológicas en la literatura shakespeariana. Breve análisis].

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is with no doubt one of the most prolific literary artists of all times; in addition to being an eminent playwright, his works reflect arguments that express medical knowledge, allude to concise descriptions that are relevant to medical practice of that time, and even to current medicine. He wrote between 35 and 38 plays, six lyric works and 154 sonnets (approximately) where finding little more than 700 references to medicine of those days is possible. For this reason, different scholars have analyzed the medical concepts within the Shakespearean literature; some agree that these may be the result of studies of his own, while others suggest that Shakespeare repeated the medical knowledge of some "men of wisdom" of his time. It should be mentioned that the author's contemporary London society lived in an overpopulated, nauseating, sexually promiscuous city that was plagued by pests and waste and continually besieged by epidemics whose treatments many times caused greater evil than benefit (for example, lead-based make-up). Some biographers credit syphilis, alcohol, and depression as the source of Shakespeare's creative production. Despite the myriad of authors who have analyzed the insinuations about medicine in Shakespeare's dramatic accounts, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is perhaps the most important; throughout his career he carried out a substantial analysis of the English playwright's works owing to his passion for literature and for this author.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) es sin duda uno de los artistas literarios más prolíficos de todos los tiempos. Además de ser un dramaturgo eminente, en sus obras podemos encontrar descripciones relativas a la práctica médica de la época e incluso de la medicina actual. Escribió entre 35 y 38 piezas teatrales, seis obras líricas y 154 sonetos (aproximadamente), en los que es posible encontrar poco más de 700 referencias a la medicina de su tiempo. Por tal motivo, diversos estudiosos han analizado los conceptos médicos en la literatura shakesperiana; algunos coinciden en que puede ser el resultado de su estudio, mientras que otros indican que Shakespeare repitió el conocimiento médico de algunos "hombres de saber" de su tiempo. Cabe mencionar que la sociedad londinense contemporánea al autor vivía en una ciudad sobrepoblada, nauseabunda, sexualmente promiscua y atestada de plagas y desechos, que continuamente era asediada por epidemias, cuyos tratamientos muchas veces ocasionaban un mal mayor a su beneficio (por ejemplo, el maquillaje de plomo). Algunos biógrafos dan crédito a la sífilis, el alcohol y la depresión como origen de la producción creativa de Shakespeare. Aun cuando un sinfín de autores se han dado a la tarea de examinar las alusiones sobre medicina en los relatos dramáticos de Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) fue quizás el más importante; a lo largo de su carrera elaboró un análisis sustancial de las obras del dramaturgo inglés debido a su pasión por la literatura y hacia este artista.