Abstract
This is an important book on the epistemic role of images in the production of knowledge about hysteria during the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twenty-first century. Muhr successfully shows the commonalities between the operationalisation of visualisations in Jean-Martin Charcot’s work and present-day functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-based hysteria research. The author offers an analysis of the operative meanings of images as opposed to a more classical iconographic examination. The book reviews the various types of images that have been used in medical research settings in two critical moments of history that, as Muhr notes, have reshaped our current understanding of hysteria. The first chapter makes a case for the possibility that images were instrumental to Charcot as epistemic tools rather than mere graphic representations. From a knowledge perspective, there is much unsaid about the actual role of visualisations in the conceptualisation of hysteria. Images, Muhr explains, are sources of information about the bodies and brains of those deemed to suffer from a condition, as difficult to determine as hysteria is. Iconographic surveys risk overlooking the epistemic value of images for the trained eye. For Charcot, images were an integral part of a knowledge production apparatus. Interpretation was also linked to the medium in question. Besides photographs, Charcot’s toolbox included body maps, diagrams, line graphs, myographic and pneumographic curves, schematic drawings, sketches and topographic brain maps. None of which were used in isolation. They allowed for the type of detailed observation that could inform medically operative meanings. Until a century-long hiatus would ensue. Images seem to have disappeared from hysteria research contexts. Muhr continues in the second chapter by contextualising the reappearance of images as tools in the systematic study of a ‘still unknown brain dysfunction’ (p. 257) in the twenty-first century.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.