July 02, 2005
This is not Faustus, this is Lauren.
Twenty increasingly drunk psychiatrists singing the song from Titanic is much less frightening than one sober psychiatrist deciding that applying leeches to the vulva is a good way to cure female nymphomania. (See also: "Dr. Wigan puts the matter in a way that may seem more extravagant than it really is when he says: I firmly believe that I have more than once changed the moral character of a boy by leeches to the inside of the nose." – Henry Maudsley, Responsibility in Mental Disease.)
People promise me that psychiatry has changed since the nineteenth century. I live in the nineteenth century, and I know better.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:35 PM
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Comments
1) Keith said (on 07/ 3/05 at 01:05 AM):
Does this mean that, um, Tom Cruise is right? Because he's *read* the history of psychiatry!
2) Lauren said (on 07/ 3/05 at 01:49 AM):
As Tom Cruise isn't in the nineteenth century, I promise you I don't know anything about him.
Maybe next week's guest blogger will? I considered doing research, but I honestly don't care.
3) Lauren said (on 07/ 3/05 at 02:04 AM):
- Though if anyone wanted to apply leeches to the inside of Tom Cruise's nose, I would be the last person to object.
4) Jess said (on 07/ 3/05 at 11:03 AM):
Um... okay then.
Psst. Someone get the net!
5) Not an M.D. said (on 07/ 3/05 at 09:26 PM):
Dear Not-Faustus Lauren:
I read your LJ. (Parts of it, that is.) I don't get it. (Not that I have to, mind you.) Why do you choose (I assume it's your choice) to "live" in the nineteenth century?
6) Lauren said (on 07/ 4/05 at 05:29 PM):
Dear Not an M.D. : If you follow current events, you'll have noticed that the 19th century is the future.
7) birdfarm said (on 07/ 4/05 at 06:54 PM):
Leeches aren't the worst of it. I went into shock for several days the first time I read a nineteenth-century psychiatrist describing how he had tamed a wild and willful girl by cutting off her clitoris.
I don't think the 19th century is the future, though, because it will be a lot warmer and perhaps even more disease-ridden in the future than it was in the 19th century.
Maybe 19th century British-controlled India is the future.
8) Mushlette said (on 07/12/05 at 05:41 PM):
I believe I'd feel compelled to smack anyone approaching my vulva with leeches. Sheesh.
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