Insomnia, Medicalization, and Expert Knowledge.

Historians have clearly articulated the ways in which sleeplessness has long been part of the human condition. As an object of medical expertise and public health intervention, however, insomnia is a much more recent invention, having gained its status as a pathology during the 1870s. But while insomnia has attracted considerable and concerted attention from public health authorities allied with sleep medicine specialists, this phenomenon is not well explained by classical medicalization theory, in part because it is the sleepless sufferers, not the medical experts, who typically have the authority to diagnose insomnia.

Insomnia, Medicalization, and Expert Knowledge.

Historians have clearly articulated the ways in which sleeplessness has long been part of the human condition. As an object of medical expertise and public health intervention, however, insomnia is a much more recent invention, having gained its status as a pathology during the 1870s. But while insomnia has attracted considerable and concerted attention from public health authorities allied with sleep medicine specialists, this phenomenon is not well explained by classical medicalization theory, in part because it is the sleepless sufferers, not the medical experts, who typically have the authority to diagnose insomnia.

Epidemic encephalitis and American neurology, 1919-1940.

Encephalitis lethargica, also known as epidemic encephalitis, emerged as a new infectious disease near the end of the First World War. Bacteriologic, epidemiologic, and clinical investigation produced no clear consensus regarding the nature of the disease, even as several other experimentally demonstrable "encephalitides" appeared on the scene. By 1940, new encephalitis lethargica cases had almost entirely disappeared, and neurologists renamed this once-novel infection as an amorphous syndrome of marginal interest.