Between the Mind Twist and the Brain Spot. The Material Dimensions of Psychopathology in the Work of Elmer Ernest Southard

Abstract

This paper explores the material and visual practices that defined studies of psychopathology in early twentieth-century American medicine, through a close look at the work of neuropathologist Elmer E. Southard (1876–1920). As a discipline sitting at the intersection between laboratory and clinical practice, neuropathology has received little attention from historians of the brain sciences. Unlike the neurologist, who was interested in treating patients and saving lives, the neuropathologist often encountered patients following death, and studied the brain for signs of pathology during autopsy. Trained in a German tradition of laboratory pathology, Southard has been cast as a somaticist with respect to psychopathology. By examining Southard’s medical and philosophical writings, I present a more nuanced analysis of the role of brain pathology in Southard’s vision of disease etiology, his views on the foundations of psychiatry, as well as a more vivid picture of the sorts of material practices that defined the work of the neuropathologist.