Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Introduction: History and the Stomach
- 1 The National Stomach: Indigestion and Nineteenth-Century British Society: An Overview
- 2 The Ulcerated Stomach: Gastric Diagnosis and the Reorganization of Medical Knowledge, c. 1800–60
- 3 The Laboratory Stomach: Gastric Analysis in an Era of Vivisection and Force-Feeding Controversies, c. 1870–1920
- 4 The Surgical Stomach: Berkeley Moynihan's Forgotten Surgical Revolution and Duodenal Ulcer Disease, c. 1880–1920
- 5 The Psychosomatic Stomach: British Society, Wartime Dyspepsia and the Return of the Patient, c. 1920–45
- Concluding Remarks
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
5 - The Psychosomatic Stomach: British Society, Wartime Dyspepsia and the Return of the Patient, c. 1920–45
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Introduction: History and the Stomach
- 1 The National Stomach: Indigestion and Nineteenth-Century British Society: An Overview
- 2 The Ulcerated Stomach: Gastric Diagnosis and the Reorganization of Medical Knowledge, c. 1800–60
- 3 The Laboratory Stomach: Gastric Analysis in an Era of Vivisection and Force-Feeding Controversies, c. 1870–1920
- 4 The Surgical Stomach: Berkeley Moynihan's Forgotten Surgical Revolution and Duodenal Ulcer Disease, c. 1880–1920
- 5 The Psychosomatic Stomach: British Society, Wartime Dyspepsia and the Return of the Patient, c. 1920–45
- Concluding Remarks
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
Pathological anatomy, physiological enquiry and abdominal surgery had all presented increasingly reductionist models of the stomach, focusing less and less upon the organ as a whole and its relationship with the bodily system, and instead concentrating more intensely on its various constituent parts. Gastric illness came to occupy a central space within the discourses that emerged between competing medical disciplines. An array of procedures and technologies had been developed in line with the reductionist approach to provide for the scientific management of gastric complaints. Yet the nature and application of these contrasted sharply with earlier methods of investigation which had focused intensely upon the patient; emphasized the relationship between stomach and mind; provided space for discussion of a highly interactive internal constitution; and which had often prioritized readjustment to external environments.
Advocates of laboratory medicine, for instance, had expressed a marked enthusiasm for reducing interpretations of disease causation to factors which demanded close localized attention only. High levels of acidity in the stomach, for example, were positioned as being solely to blame for the production of gastric and duodenal ulcers. In terms of treatment, abdominal surgery became concerned simply with removing any anomalies found to provide relief, a strategy that typically provoked minimal enquiry into the more general condition of the patient. Overall, the function of the stomach had been radically reassessed and a tendency had arisen to depict it as holding significantly less corporeal importance than it had been accorded historically.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Modern History of the StomachGastric Illness, Medicine and British Society, 1800–1950, pp. 107 - 124Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014