‘A most peculiar form of disease’: The creation of anorexia nervosa in late nineteenth-century Britain

Thesis

Anorexia nervosa appeared as a newly named disorder in the 1870s in Britain, leading historians and other scholars to pinpoint this as the origin point of a medicalised understanding of female food refusal. An abiding interest in locating the historical roots of this contemporary disorder has led scholars to emphasise the ways in which anorexia nervosa is therefore an historical and not merely a ‘modern’ disorder. It has also resulted in a body of scholarship that emphasises continuity ove...

Expand abstract

Authors: Sookdeosingh, RV

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Women's Life-Writing; Anorexia Nervosa; Illness Narratives; Eating Disorders; Women's periodicals, British
• Subjects: Historiography; History; Diseases and history; Social history; History of Medicine; Cultural History; Gender History; British History