rus: synd og salighet - Fortid

een published, and in 1985 the field had its own peer
review journal, The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs.
The literature on drug addiction is wide-ranging, spanning
from histories of specific drugs to global histories
on narcotics. 4 Addiction studies have tended to focus on
political and legal sides of the topic. David Musto’s The
American Disease (1973) on the history of US policy of
drug prohibition was the first major study on the subject,
and it was followed by a number of books focusing not
only on the history of national drug legislation, but also
on foreign policy and international attempts to control or
prevent drug trafficking and trade. 5 In addition, political
discussions in the 1970s about the social causes of drug
abuse led to social history studies of urban addicts, as
well as gender studies of drug abuse among women. 6 The
medicalisation critique of the 1960s and 1970s also influenced
the historiography of drug addiction and, inspired
by theorists such as Thomas Szasz, scholars have contested
the notion of drug addiction as a disease. These critics
argue that the medical profession had a vested interest in
defining and constructing drug addiction as a disease. 7
Generally, the historiography has emphasised political issues
of drug addiction, gender studies, and social history
analysis of drug abuse.
New fields of study
Even though there is substantial international literature
on the history of drug abuse, few studies have addressed
the therapeutic side of the issue. 8 In particular, psychiatric
treatment of drug abuse has received only scant attention
by scholars of addiction. Furthermore, little has
been written about specific groups of psychiatric patients
and in particular physicians, who received drug abuse
treatment. 9 The fact that medical doctors were well represented
among the morphinists was not just a Danish
phenomenon. In European addiction studies of the 1880s
and onwards, we find startling announcements that more
than forty percent of medical professionals were addicted,
and almost similar statements appear in American studies.
10 Even though these data are somewhat questionable,
physicians appear to be one of the most prominent demographic
groups among morphine addicts in the Western
world after the middle of the nineteenth century. 11 Yet,
little is known about why these medical professionals became
drug abuse patients, and how the group of addicted
doctors affected decisions about drug policies in various
countries.
Archival sources
One of the reasons why historians have not written much
on addicted physicians might be due to problems with
access to certain archival sources. The main source for
obtaining information about patients who were treated
for drug abuse is patient records of mental hospitals. In
fortid 4-2010 31
some countries, the confidentiality and privacy of psychiatric
patient records is an obstacle to gaining access to
this information, and in other countries mental hospital
records have not been preserved. In Denmark, however,
the Danish State Archives have collected all patient
records of state mental hospitals, and permission to use
these records can be obtained.
Patient records offer a wealth of information about the
social position of the inmates. Psychiatrists collected information
about their patients from general practitioners,
close relatives, the school system, employees, and the
legal system, and this information can be used to analyse
the social background of the patients. Furthermore, case
notes were made at a time when it was only psychiatrists
who had access to the records. Consequently, case notes
often contain personal comments about the inmates. Yet
patient records not only give insight into the views of
psychiatrists; transcripts of conversations between psychiatrist
and patient, questionnaires and patients’ letters
(intercepted by psychiatrists) also appear in the records
and give, to some extent, information about the patients’
experiences. 12
Danish psychiatry
Danish patient records were created in various mental
hospitals scattered throughout the country. In the early
twentieth century a total of seven state mental hospitals
were managed by a directorate within the Ministry of the
Interior. Providing between 7000 and 7500 beds out of a
total of about 11000 psychiatric beds, these institutions
contained the largest number of psychiatric patients in
Denmark. Apart form the state mental hospitals, a municipal
mental hospital (Sct. Hans), as well as four psychiatric
clinics, were situated in the capital, Copenhagen.
Altogether, they had beds for about 3000 patients. The
private psychiatric sector of the Danish mental health
system remained small and consisted of only one private
mental hospital (Filadelfia) with just under 200 beds. In
1950, the private, municipal and state institutions were
supposed to address the needs of a population of approximately
4,2 million. 13 Most of these hospitals or asylums
were founded in the late nineteenth century, and they
were run by a chief physician and a small staff of doctors
and nurses, usually 6 to 7 psychiatrists for about 1000
patients. Consequently, the day to day contact between
psychiatrists and patients was limited. It was in these
psychiatric institutions that long term treatment of drug
addiction was conducted in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century.
The Mental Hospital in Vordingborg
Several drug abuse patients were admitted to the state
mental hospital in Vordingborg.