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The Case of Sigmund Freud: Medicine and Identity at the Fin de Siècle (review)

The Case of Sigmund Freud: Medicine and Identity at the Fin de Siècle (review) Book Reviews The Case of Sigmund Freud: Medicine and Identity at the Fin de Sii~cle, by Sander 1. Gilman. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. 298 pp. $31.95. How might a scientist react when the official science of his day denigrates the ethnic group of which he is a part? This is the question Sander Gilman poses in regard to Sigmund Freud. In so doing, Gilman paints an exceptionally vivid picture of the antisemitism prevailing in the scientific and medical literature at the turn of the century. He also offers a theory on the origins of some fundamental psychoanalytic thought. late nineteenth-century scientists argued that Jews had a diseased nature that was immutable; no matter what they did, they remained "identifiable and different" (p. 18). Even religious conversion, formerly accepted as a "solution," would not work because Jews were identified as a separate race. Many Jewish physicians and social scientists were themselves influenced by these racial arguments and put forth a variety of environmental and biological explanations for what they regarded as problematic aspects of the Jewish character and physical being. Assimilated Jews were particularly likely to find disease among the so-called Ostjuden crews from the eastern parts http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies Purdue University Press

The Case of Sigmund Freud: Medicine and Identity at the Fin de Siècle (review)

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Publisher
Purdue University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Purdue University.
ISSN
1534-5165
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Book Reviews The Case of Sigmund Freud: Medicine and Identity at the Fin de Sii~cle, by Sander 1. Gilman. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. 298 pp. $31.95. How might a scientist react when the official science of his day denigrates the ethnic group of which he is a part? This is the question Sander Gilman poses in regard to Sigmund Freud. In so doing, Gilman paints an exceptionally vivid picture of the antisemitism prevailing in the scientific and medical literature at the turn of the century. He also offers a theory on the origins of some fundamental psychoanalytic thought. late nineteenth-century scientists argued that Jews had a diseased nature that was immutable; no matter what they did, they remained "identifiable and different" (p. 18). Even religious conversion, formerly accepted as a "solution," would not work because Jews were identified as a separate race. Many Jewish physicians and social scientists were themselves influenced by these racial arguments and put forth a variety of environmental and biological explanations for what they regarded as problematic aspects of the Jewish character and physical being. Assimilated Jews were particularly likely to find disease among the so-called Ostjuden crews from the eastern parts

Journal

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish StudiesPurdue University Press

Published: Oct 3, 1995

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