Gli ebrei, un popolo di nevrastenici: una costruzione culturale della psichiatria europea tra Otto e Novecento

Abstract

Since the second half of the 19th century, the idea that Jews were particularly subject to specific nervous pathologies, especially neurasthenia, has been the object of a wide-ranging debate among the most authoritative European psychiatrists. The idea that “A neurasthenic trait passes over the whole race” might represent a conclusive and significant phase in this vast international controversy. This normative code was conceptualized primarily by Charcot and in his school. Included in the epistemic framework of hysterical neurosis, such an interpretation exinplained that the ancient image of the wandering Jew, with an uncertain gait and a flaccid body, far from being the result of a divine curse, was the outcome of a racial predisposition aggravated by the practice of consanguineous marriages. The debate became more intense, it became a mere statistical fact, it created some resistance and perplexity, but was strongly acquired by many Jewish intellectuals who, however, attenuated its most negative consequences. This article reconstructs the dissemination and variations of this important normative code, which was re-proposed for many decades: during the Fascist era, for example, an important paradigmatic change left the code virtually undetected, while at the same time repeating it in an increasingly schematic way. In different contexts, the code marked a strangeness of the Jewish people vis-a-vis the purity of the body of the Nation, placing itself at the centre of important dilemmas concerning the model of modern civilization, aesthetic canons, and gender roles.