Medical Narrative of Hysteria: An Analysis of the Intake Forms and Clinical Files of Patients at the Castañeda Hospital, Mexico City (1910-1968)

• In Event: Histories of Psychiatry in Latin America: New Trends

Abstract

During the 58 years of the Castañeda hospital’s operation (1910-1968), patients’ first experiences with the medical gaze occurred through the intake questionnaire which was used to determine the initial diagnosis and to make ward assignments. Understanding that these documents provide a very specific narrative through which to see the medical narrative, this presentation examines how the forms changed over times as questions disappeared and were replaced with new questions. Moreover, the paper considers the relationship of patients’ intake forms to their subsequent, and often very elaborate, clinical records. Taken together, these documents allow us insight into how medical ideas and practices changed during a long period of time. Part of a larger project that considers a wide range of diagnosis, this paper focuses exclusively on patients diagnosed with hysteria. Medical Narrative of Hysteria: An Analysis of the Intake Forms and Clinical Files of Patients at the Castañeda Hospital, Mexico City (1910-1968)

Author

• Teresa Ordorika Sacristán, CEIICH-UNAM