invention of hysteria charcot and the photographic iconography of the salpetriere

[...]... should be taken Then what more did he do or want to do with hysteria, what did he make of hysteria? Or rather: what took place between the exemplary moment when Charcot affirmed that, after all, the word hysteria did not mean anything,22 and the moment of the “dismemberment” of hysteria, that is, the attempt of his own disciples to lay the word to rest on the death of the master?23 The Art of Putting Facts... seeing and suffering How could all this passion be produced from figures of pain? This is the crucial phenomenological problem of approaching the body of the Other and of the intimacy of its pain It is the political problem of the spectacular interest paid by the observed in return for the “hospitality” (the hospital’s capitalization) that he enjoys as a patient It is the problem of the violence of seeing... kind of miracle (the miracle by which Christ’s Cross was disinterred from the Temple of Venus surmounting the Holy Sepulcher, and then “recognized” by Saint Helena among two other crosses This miracle is celebrated as the liturgy of the so-called Invention and Exaltation of the True Cross What will be attempted here, between the venereal body and crucifixions of pain, is precisely the opening of the. .. proliferation of images Charcot worked under the aegis of Fleury’s painting,3 which exhibits, in the foreground, the fetters and tools that tell the tale of the enchaining of the madwomen and their “liberation” by Pinel (fig 1); what is depicted is the turning point, or rather the decisive chiasmus, which Pinel is said to have effected in the mythology of madness.4 This chiasmus was, in the first place, the concept... together and to create a special division called the “Division of Simple Epileptics.” The most senior of the two doctors of the Salpêtrière, Charcot was automatically charged with the new service This is how, through force of circumstance, Charcot found himself plunged into the midst of hysteria. 13 Veni Vedi Charcot thus descended into hell; but he didn’t feel so badly there Because the four or five thousand... in these images, it is because photography was in the ideal position to crystallize the link between the fantasy of hysteria and the fantasy of knowledge A reciprocity of charm was instituted between physicians, with their insatiable desire for images of Hysteria, and hysterics, who willingly participated and actually raised the stakes through their increasingly theatricalized bodies In this way, hysteria. .. context of hysteria, a physician finds it next to impossible not to observe, as an artist, the luxurious pain of a body in the throes of its symptoms Nor can I myself escape this paradox of atrocity, for I am nearly compelled to consider hysteria, insofar as it was fabricated at the Salpêtrière in the last third of the nineteenth century, as a chapter in the history of art The Outbreak of Madwomen But there... open, for he is the stronger But where is the soul? Here begin stupor and sadness There are others who break the toy, barely examined, barely placed in their hands As for them, I admit that I am ignorant of the mysterious feeling that impels them to act Are they seized by a superstitious rage against these diminutive objects that imitate humanity, or rather are they submitting them to a kind of Masonic... historic mistake of 1792 (a “conspiracy of women” supposed to be associated with a “conspiracy of prisons”) and the “terrible massacre of women, of which History has provided no other example”18 (fig 2) 11 This page intentionally left blank 2 Clinical Knowledge The Scene of the Crimes The Salpêtrière was the mecca of the great confinement, known locally as the “little Arsenal,” and was the largest hospice... presented the Senator and Prefect of the Seine, Monsieur Dupon, with his voluminous Report on the Service of the Insane of the Department of the Seine in the Year 1862,5 the very same year that Charcot entered the Salpêtrière He presents some interesting statistics; there were approximately one physician per five hundred patients and three different diets: two daily portions, one portion, and starvation . proliferation of images. Charcot worked under the aegis of Fleury’s painting, 3 which exhibits, in the fore- ground, the fetters and tools that tell the tale of the enchaining of the madwomen and their. celebrated as the liturgy of the so-called Invention and Exaltation of the True Cross. What will be attempted here, between the venereal body and crucifixions of pain, is precisely the opening of the writings. de- cline. An invention is the event of signifiers. But what I want to speak of is the meaning of the extreme visibility of this event of pain, the all too ev- ident pain of hysteria. Invention Inventing