Dhat Syndrome East and West: A History in Two Acts.
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| Title: | Dhat Syndrome East and West: A History in Two Acts. |
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| Authors: | Janssen, Diederik F. (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry. Dec2024, Vol. 48 Issue 4, p918-939. 22p. |
| Subjects: | Semen, Symptoms, Eighteenth century, Sexology, Psychoanalysis |
| Abstract: | The intriguing story of dhat syndrome is that of medical modernity (psychiatry, clinical sexology) declaring medical premodernity (Ayurvedic concepts of semen loss) as its object. The early history and prehistory of this "culture-bound" diagnosis help understanding it as a dynamic confrontation of local, shifting knowledges. For instance, semen loss anxiety was an established motif both in European early twentieth-century psychoanalysis and again in several Indian psychodynamic texts of the 1960s. Moreover, it became problematically tied to notions of "Indian character". Little realized is that European venereologists were dealing with much comparable clinical presentations since the late eighteenth century, often resolving them in strikingly similar ways. For centuries, European proto-endocrinological ideas tied masculinity to the absorption and recirculation of semen, informing popular conceptions of "semen loss" (spermatorrhea) much comparable to those driven by dhatu physiology, dovetailing in colonial-era medicine. Expressive of growing controversy concerning this physiology after the mid-eighteenth century, a leitmotif of exaggerated fears tied to both "quacks" and proselytizing leading authorities such as Tissot and Lallemand, informed diagnoses of "tabes imaginaria", "spermatophobia", and "imaginary spermatorrhea." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Copyright of Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) | |
| Database: | Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection |
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