Resumo

SCHMIDT, Eder. Thomas Sydenham e o Epistolary discourse: uma ponte entre duas histeriasThomas Sydenham and the Epistolary discourse: a bridge between two hysteriasThomas Sydenham y el Epistolary discourse: un puente entre dos histeriasThomas Sydenham et le Epistolary discourse: un pont entre deux hystéries. Rev. bras. psicanál [online]. 2019, vol.53, n.2, pp. 181-192. ISSN 0486-641X.

Analysis of the narratives on the history of hysteria reveals that those who elaborated them did not always take into account the fundamentally historiographical aspect of that proposal, and some inferences were considered as historical facts. This error gave rise to narratives that should not be classified as histories, but rather as mythologies. All too often, the historical trail of hysteria is taken to begin in Egyptian medicine, and then follow a continuum: to Hippocrates, the witches of the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, the Salpêtrière, Charcot, and then Freud. However, from a historiographical point of view (and avoiding anachronism), this appears not to be the reliable sequence. This paper reviews that trajectory and proposes that a history of hysteria would unfold in two stages, distinguishing hysteria, as a disease of the uterus, from hysteria, as a neurosis. In such a proposal, a bridge between the two conceptions would have been established by Thomas Sydenham in 1682, with the Epistolary Discourse to the Learned Dr. William Cole.

Palavras-chave : history of hysteria; Thomas Sydenham; uterine theories; hysterical character.

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