Call Number:

MC.801.04.003

Repository:

Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections

Extent:

.25 linear ft. (1 volume)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Edward Charles Spitzka scrapbook on insanity and psychiatry (HC.MC 801.04.003), Quaker & Special Collections, Haverford College, Haverford, PA.

Date:

1895-1903 (inclusive)

Abstract:

A scrapbook of newspaper, magazine, and medical journal clippings from 1895 to 1903 that describe the research, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness, or "insanity," compiled by Edward Charles Spitzka.

Edward Charles Spitzka was born in New York City, New York on November 10, 1852. He attended the College of the City of New York and the University of New York, studying medicine. He then studied further in Europe until 1876, when he returned to New York to practice medicine involving the central nervous system. At this point, he researched brains of animals and became more interested in mental health medicine as an early American psychologist. He joined the American Neurological Association in 1877, and held various leadership positions at regional neurological organizations as well. He is famed for testifying in the trial of Charles Guiteau, the assassin of president James A. Garfield, in 1881. In 1883, he published a groundbreaking manual on the diagnoses of mental illness, Treatise on Insanity: Its Classification, Diagnosis, and Treatment, and continued to do neurological research, discovering parts of the brains in many different animals. He had one child, Edward Anthony Spitzka, with Catherine Wacek, his wife. Spitzka died in 1914.

These papers, collected by Edward Charles Spitzka, contain newspaper, magazine, and medical journal clippings from 1895 to 1903 that describe the research, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness, or "insanity." Some of the clippings diagnose particular individuals with "insanity" (especially regarding crimes and in court), while others provide information about the frequency of "insanity" among the population or in gender groups. Other clippings describe patterns in journalism about "insanity."

This collection consists of one volume, with the clippings ordered by the creator.