Abstract
In the 19th century, fervid debates arose in the young psychiatric science about how to deal with and to scientifically categorize human behaviour which was perceived as dangerous to society, and as criminal. There were two concepts that stood out in these transnationally held discussions; namely moral insanity and later on, psychopathy. Following recent approaches in the cultural and social history of psychiatry, we understand moral insanity and psychopathy as social constructs, which are determined by the evolution in psychiatric knowledge, and also by laws, codes and social norms of particular historical timeframes. Our task is to discuss the evolution and adoption of these concepts in two linguistically different, but still historically profoundly entangled regions, namely in Italian and Croatian psychiatric discourses at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century. Our analysis of two of the most important medical and psychiatric journals of the time shows that psychiatric debates on antisocial and criminal behaviour were in numerous ways entangled and shaped by the way the two societies scientifically, legally, and institutionally struggled over the question of how to detect and control the mentally incapacitated criminal offender.
Highlights
Following recent approaches in the cultural and social history of psychiatry, we understand moral insanity and psychopathy as social constructs, which are determined by the evolution in psychiatric knowledge, and by laws, codes and social norms of particular historical timeframes
It was Bénédict Morel, in 1857, who introduced degeneration into psychi‐ atric discourse, more from a philosophical and religious viewpoint rather than a ‘scientific’ one. His theory was based on the three cornerstones: (1) de‐ generative alterations are pathological deviations from normality; (2) mental diseases are mostly hereditary; and (3) degeneration occurs quanti‐ tatively, and qualitatively, resulting in completely new disorders.[14]. His nosology of mental diseases encompassed various grades of degeneration, among which we find folie morale, a derivate of moral insanity
The debates regarding moral insanity in Croatia and Italy took place in different times and circumstances, they both happened in times in which the psychiatric discipline was establishing itself in the respective countries
Summary
In the 19th century, fervid debates arose in the young psychiatric science about how to deal with and to scientifically categorize human behaviour which was perceived as dangerous to society, and as criminal. Following recent approaches in the cultural and social history of psychiatry, we understand moral insanity and psychopathy as social constructs, which are determined by the evolution in psychiatric knowledge, and by laws, codes and social norms of particular historical timeframes. We understand both moral insanity and psychopathy not merely as fixed psychiatric and medical entities, but as social constructs that were fluid over time. Thereby, their social constructedness was determined by evolutions in psychiatric knowledge, and through processes of cate‐ gorisation and of differentiation of mental disorders, which have not been exempt from specific historical circumstances, development of codes, laws,
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