The recently published May 2023 issue of the Social History of Medicine journal includes three articles that may interest to h-madness readers. The titles, authors and abstracts are as follows:

‘The Unseen Enemy Persists’: Delusion, Trauma and the South African War in Australian Asylum Case Notes, by Effie Karageorgos

“Australian troops travelling to South Africa in 1899 to join Britain in fighting the Boers left behind communities consumed with the conflict. The colonies that would form the Australian nation in 1901 organised parades, concerts and eagerly awaited news from the battlefield. This article analyses these cultural responses to the South African War alongside the experiences of institutionalised delusional men. It traces ways the conflict penetrated the walls of Australian asylums, and the minds of the insane within them, as well as the sane existing in society. Delusions based on the conflict appeared not only in the words of men who had travelled to South Africa, but also those who were evidently deeply affected by Australian involvement in the war, following the fervour within the societies from which they came. The resulting analysis of the words and experiences of the insane expands the historiography of the conflict in new ways”.

The Republic of Fear: Mental Illness in the Finnish Civil War of 1918, by Petteri Pietikainen

“This article examines the links between mental illness and the Finnish Civil War of 1918. Based on the study of patient records from a large state mental hospital, the article discusses the mental wounds of both servicemen and civilians and focuses on fear as an essential component in the onset of mental disorder. An examination of patient records reveals how civil war affected the mental health of ordinary people and created a collective psychological atmosphere of fear and anxiety. What this article also demonstrates is that, during and after the war, patients who were mentally scarred by the atrocities were neither categorised nor diagnosed any differently from other mental patients. By focussing on patient experiences in the ‘mini-society’ of a mental hospital, this article aims to give a nuanced account of the ways in which civil war can affect mental health on both the individual and collective levels”.

Negotiating Shanghai Mercy Hospital: Philanthropy, Business and Control of Madness in Republican China, by Jinping Ma

“This study examines the initiation and administration of Mercy Hospital in Republican Shanghai. It explains the protracted negotiations that underpinned the collaboration between the Chinese founder Lu Bohong, the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) of the International Settlement and the Municipal Administration (FMA) of the French Concession. Despite mutual needs for a psychiatric hospital, the collaboration was undermined by disputes over funding shares and administrative direction. While Lu expected a symbolic modern philanthropy, the SMC and FMA saw it as an economic tool to relieve the responsibility of regulating refugees and the increasing mental patients. They repeatedly forced Lu to make concessions with financial instruments, but ended up non-cooperation, leading the patrons to compromise to keep their problem solver. However, after Lu’s murder and the subsequent dysfunction of the Chinese municipal government, the SMC and FMA could not help but take on this task to protect their settlements from the threat”.