This book deals with the history of the main mental symptoms, i.e. of what is called descriptive psychopathology. Based on research carried out during the last 25 years, it covers about two centuries of French, German, Italian, Spanish, and British primary sources. Due to my ignorance of eastern European languages, the corresponding fields of inquiry have been left unexplored. The seriousness of this omission will depend on how important these psychiatric cultures have been to the development of western descriptive psychopathology.

The reader will notice that the book mainly examines the nineteenth century and after. The reason for having chosen this time span is ideological. During the 1960s, I was influenced by Gaston Bachelard and his notions of epistemological rupture and refonte. Preliminary research then suggested that something like a rupture and a ‘recasting’ had affected the discourse of insanity during the first half of the nineteenth century. Further work has provided reasonable evidence that such a change gave rise to the new language of mental symptoms.

Trying to identify the reasons that led nineteenth century alienists to select certain words and concepts to describe (and explain) the signs and symptoms of insanity is an awesome task. In addition to the pitfalls posed by interpreting subjective choice, there is the problem of documentary (both published and archival) unevenness caused no doubt by the bellic vicissitudes of Europe. Hence, the attentive reader will soon find out that more is known about some symptoms than others. I hope to correct this imbalance in the future.