Citation

Casper ST. Isis 2022; 113(2): 266-288.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/719720

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The observation that neurological illnesses follow recurrent hits to the head was tempered by the terms that first called the diseases into scientific existence: "punch-drunk," "slugnutty," "slaphappy," "goofy," "punchy," and a host of other colloquialisms accompanying class identities. Thus the discovery of disease and its medicalization ran straight into a countervailing belief about losers--losers in boxing, losers in life, losers in general. To medicalize such individuals was to fly in the face of a culture that made them jokes. Yet a subculture began to emerge around pathological understandings: first in medicine, then in journalism, then in the courts, and finally with patient accounts about illness.

Language: en