Foucault on Madness, other information



Fellow Foucaulians:

It has been a while since I have read "Madness & Civilization"
but as I recall the drill went like this: madness was
tolerated and was a village issue until the demands of
capitalism required a stricter order of communities.
Then and only then, did the institutionalization of
madness commence.

Well, in my studies of Medieval Islam, esp, Howard Turner's
_Science in Medieval Islam_ he shows a floor plan of
a 13th century hospital in Cairo with rooms for each of
insane females and insane males. (p 143)

The point being that the demands of capitalism may not have
been the deciding factor in institutionalizing the insane.

Comments?

Other discussions of early institutionalization of the insane
in Islamic states can be found in
Michael Dols, Majnun: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society
or Manfred Ullmann, Islamic Medicine,

Wm King
bill@xxxxxxxxxx


They cannot represent themselves: they must be represented.
Karl Marx, _The Eighteenth Brumaire of Loius Bonaparte_.

The Indignity of Speaking for others.
Gilles Deleuze, _Language, Counter-Memory, Practice_.


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