Abstract

CAPONI, Sandra. Classifications, agreements and negotiations: bases for the first international statistics on mental diseases (Paris 1889). Dynamis [online]. 2012, vol.32, n.1, pp.185-207. ISSN 2340-7948.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S0211-95362012000100009.

This article discusses the construction of the first international classification of mental diseases, specifically created to allow a unified statistics on the mentally ill. This classification was discussed and approved at the International Congress of Mental Medicine held in Paris in August 1889, in response to a request made by the Society of Mental Medicine of Belgium four years earlier. A careful reading of this report helps us to understand the role of the classification and statistics of pathologies in the field of psychiatric medicine. This offers an historical perspective on an issue that remains problematic and allows analysis of the time when psychiatric classifications were first articulated and subjected to comparative statistical study.

Keywords : Quételet; classification; quantification; statistics; psychiatry.

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