Charcot in Morocco
by Jean-Martin Charcot
translated by Toby Gelfand
Charcot in Morocco is the first-ever publication of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s travel diary of his 1887 trip to Morocco. Considered the father of neuropathology, Charcot (1825–1893) is a seminal character in the history of neurology and psychology. His Moroccan travel diary includes his “objective” observations of the local Jewish community, which only fortified his assumptions about the relationship between race and neuropathology. These became a conspicuous feature of his ideas about the hereditary origins of nervous ailments. His ideas – taught as doctrine to a vast audience, including a young Sigmund Freud – reveal the convergence of clinical observation and European anti-Semitism at the end of the nineteenth century.
Including an enlightening critical introduction by renowned Charcot expert Toby Gelfand, Charcot in Morocco provides new insights into the personality of this influential figure and his perspectives on the “Orient” and its inhabitants.
Toby Gelfand, PhD, is the Jason A. Hannah Professor of History of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. He has published extensively on the history of medicine in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, particularly on the contribution of Jean-Martin Charcot and his relationship with Sigmund Freud. He is the co-author, with Christopher G. Goetz and Michel Bonduelle, of the definitive biography Charcot: Constructing Neurology (Oxford University Press, 1995) and co-editor, with John Kerr, of Freud and the History of Psychoanalysis (Analytic Press, 1992), among other works.
close this panel"Charcot in Morocco is a brilliant and important project, which I am delighted is now available to all scholars interested in the relationship between psychiatry and ethnology. A wonderful piece of work, which is also, by the way, a beautiful book."
- Dr. Sander L. Gilman. Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences; Professor of Psychiatry, Emory University
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