Tropical neurasthenia

Stannus, Hugh S.

doi:10.1016/s0035-9203(27)80002-7

Cited by 18 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…On obtaining their confidence, an essential, though often a long business, one found anxiety and mental conflict; and back [sic] of it all a desire to return to the West Indies'. 21 Following Hanschell, Hugh S. Stannus confirmed that he had also seen neurasthenic symptoms in Africans. Using a language reminiscent of debates in Britain on the degeneration of the working classes, Stannus added that: I, too, have seen neurasthenic symptoms in such people in this country, but also in natives in their own countries-not while living their normal lives in their villages, but when partly educated and subjected to conditions to which they were not adapted-just as one sees neurasthenia common to-day among a partly educated class whose immediate forbears [sic] were uneducated.…”

Section: Neurasthenia and Race In The Medical Literaturementioning

confidence: 94%

Neurasthenia at Mengo Hospital, Uganda: A Case Study in Psychiatry and a Diagnosis, 1906–50

Pringle

2016

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

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This article uses a case-study approach to examine the complex and contradictory nature of diagnoses like neurasthenia in colonial Africa. Drawing on the case notes of European and African patients diagnosed with neurasthenia at the Church Missionary Society's Mengo Hospital, Uganda, it argues that in practice, and outside the colonial asylum in particular, ideas about race and mental illness were more nuanced than histories of psychiatry and empire might imply. At Mengo, the tales of pain and suffering recorded by the doctors remind us that there is more to the history of neurasthenia than colonial anxieties and socio-political control.

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Section: Neurasthenia and Race In The Medical Literaturementioning

confidence: 94%

Neurasthenia at Mengo Hospital, Uganda: A Case Study in Psychiatry and a Diagnosis, 1906–50

Pringle

2016

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

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“…He is exiled from home; often separated from his family; generally unable to make ends meet for some reason or other; suffering, in many cases, loneliness and lack of congenial society; envious of others; disappointed over promotion; with ambition thwarted. Living amidst a native population causes him annoyance at every turn... 66 New officers to East Africa were warned accordingly that most staff were "employed in the areas inhabited by natives, and cannot expect to be stationed in the areas covered by European settlement." 67 Neurasthenia became reconfigured in its tropical location to take account of this isolation, while at the same time reasserting the inherent superiority of its imperialist sufferers, who were frequently characterised as having been somehow driven to neurasthenia through the "excessive irritation" which 13 dealing with Africans stimulated.…”

Section: Tropical Nervousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This preference to weed out neurasthenics, or potential neurasthenics, during the selection procedure was explicitly stated within the medical literature, which stressed the political benefits of "correct selection of the men allowed to proceed to tropical countries." 86 The director of colonial service recruitment between 1910 and 1948, Ralph Furse, particularly rigorously applied these medico-social ideals when selecting candidates for service abroad: "The fundamental qualification" for colonial officials he said was "mens sana in corpore sano. He must, if possible, not only start fit, but be kept fit; in mind, nerves and body."…”

Section: Nervousness In the Management Of Empirementioning

confidence: 99%

What Was Tropical about Tropical Neurasthenia? The Utility of the Diagnosis in the Management of British East Africa

Crozier¹

2009

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

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During the first quarter of the twentieth century, tropical neurasthenia was a popular diagnosis for a nervous condition experienced by Europeans in the topics. Tropical neurasthenia was not psychosis or madness, but was rather an ennui or loss of "edge" brought about by the strains of tropical life, especially the unfamiliar, hot climate. A catch-all for a wide range of symptoms, many missionaries, colonial staff, and settlers throughout Empire were repatriated because of it, although this article concentrates on Colonial Service employees working in British East Africa. While histories of tropical neurasthenia have usefully (and correctly) explained this diagnosis as an expression of the anxieties of the colonial regime, this article adds a new dimension to the historiography by arguing that tropical neurasthenia can only be properly understood as a hybrid form, dependent not only upon the peculiarities of the colonial situation, but also descended from British and American clinical understandings of neurasthenia. Moreover, once tropical neurasthenia is properly acknowledged as being typical of clinical understandings of the time, other reasons for its comparatively long endurance in the colonial situation emerge. This article shows that tropical neurasthenia remained a popular diagnosis in East Africa not only because (as historians have argued previously) it dovetailed with prevalent ideas of colonial acclimatization, but also because it was a practically useful tool in the management and regulation of colonial personnel.

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“…At the very least, physicians needed to discern a predisposition for the condition among potential recruits to the service in order to ensure the "correct selection of the men allowed to proceed to tropical countries." 20 Discerning the more resilient types of individuals was of concern to the colonial and missionary services alike. A statistically detailed study on the causes of invaliding from the tropics concerned primarily with missions concluded that the "capacity for 'nerve strain' is a real factor to be considered in passing candidates to go abroad, and therefore it would be wise to exclude those who have any decided taint of mental instability in their family history, also those of highly nervous temperaments."…”

Section: The Crisis Of Neurasthenia In the Tropicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Psychology of Rebellion: Colonial Medical Responses to Dissent in British East Africa

Mahone

2006

J. Afr. Hist.

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This article opens with a retelling of colonial accounts of the ‘mania of 1911’, which took place in the Kamba region of Kenya Colony. The story of this ‘psychic epidemic’ and others like it would be recounted over the years as evidence depicting the predisposition of Africans to episodic mass hysteria. This use of medical and psychological language in primarily non-medical contexts serves to highlight the intellectual and political roles psychiatric ideas played in colonial governance. The salience of such ideas was often apparent in the face of increasing social tension, charismatic leadership and a proliferation of East African prophetic movements. This article addresses the attempts by the colonial authorities to understand or characterize, in psychological terms, a progression of African ‘rebellious types’ in society that often took the form of prophets and visionaries, but were diagnosed as epileptic, neurotic or suffering from ‘religious mania’.

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Tropical neurasthenia

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Neurasthenia at Mengo Hospital, Uganda: A Case Study in Psychiatry and a Diagnosis, 1906–50

Neurasthenia at Mengo Hospital, Uganda: A Case Study in Psychiatry and a Diagnosis, 1906–50

What Was Tropical about Tropical Neurasthenia? The Utility of the Diagnosis in the Management of British East Africa

The Psychology of Rebellion: Colonial Medical Responses to Dissent in British East Africa

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