Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of patient vignettes
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology of catatonia concepts
- 1 Catatonia: A history
- 2 Signs of catatonia are identifiable
- 3 The many faces of catatonia
- 4 The differential diagnosis of catatonia
- 5 Catatonia is measurable and common
- 6 Past treatments for catatonia
- 7 Management of catatonia today
- 8 The neurology of catatonia
- 9 Back to the future
- Appendices
- References
- Index
1 - Catatonia: A history
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of patient vignettes
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology of catatonia concepts
- 1 Catatonia: A history
- 2 Signs of catatonia are identifiable
- 3 The many faces of catatonia
- 4 The differential diagnosis of catatonia
- 5 Catatonia is measurable and common
- 6 Past treatments for catatonia
- 7 Management of catatonia today
- 8 The neurology of catatonia
- 9 Back to the future
- Appendices
- References
- Index
Summary
The nineteenth century concept of ‘disorder of motility’ is one of the most difficult to grasp from the perspective of today. This tells much about the role of ideology and metaphor in descriptive psychopathology. For what might have in common clinical states as diverse as stupor, akinesia, catalepsy, psychomotor retardation, agitation, impulsions, bradyphrenia, parkinsonism, dyskinesias, akathisia, grimacing, mannerisms, posturing, stereotypes, soft neurological signs, tremors and tics except, perhaps, the fact that they all refer in a general way to human movement? Confronted with such a list, the neurologist of today might respond as he would to a medieval bestiary, i.e. with amused disbelief.
Berrios, 1996a: 378.While we have no doubt that catatonia has long been a feature of human behavior, the first description in our literature is that of a patient in stupor by the English physician Philip Barrough in 1583, under the title Of Congelation or Taking.
Catoche or Catalepsis in Greeke … The newe wryters in phisick do call it Congelatio, in English it maie be called Congelation or taking. It is a sodaine detention & taking both of mind and body, both sense and moving being lost, the sicke remaining in the same figure of bodie wherin he was taken, whither he sit or lye, or stand, or whither his eyes be open or shut. This disease is a meane betwene the lethargic and the frenesy, for it cometh of a melancholy humour for the most parte, as shalbe declared afterward … […]
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- CatatoniaA Clinician's Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment, pp. 1 - 18Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003