Cultural Morphology of Eating Disorders

醫史學 제13권 제1호(통권 제24호) 2004년 6월 Korean J Med Hist 13∶ 94– 118 June 2004 大韓醫史學會 ISSN 1225– 505X Cultural M orph olo g y of E atin g D i s orde rs Osamu Kanamori* psychologist With this important limit what can 1 Destructing solid-like contour of eating I do? disorders For hasty and rough spectators what I can add to this multidimensional model may be just a When we confront with such complicated very subtle and trivial one What I would like to diseases as eating disorders1) the understanding try in this paper is a sort of destruction of according to which we cannot analyze them only solid-like contour of eating disorders contour through the lens of biomedical apparatus without presupposed even in this multidimensional model referring simultaneously to the social and cultural In other words I will try to analyze the state of context is only a point of start and not a affairs in which three judgments like It is conclusion For such diseases the suitable obviously an eating disorder It may be a case question is not whether or not the social and of eating disorder and It is not an eating cultural factors are also implicated in their disorder overlap one another so as to be etiology but how the social and cultural factors confounded or become indistinguishable in certain are implicated in it So when this multi- moment Quite strange as it may be it will be dimensional model of etiology is almost an my theoretical aim I would say again in another acquired common premise what kind of word that my aim is to assist in bewildering contribution am I able to do in this discourse? moments during which one may be vexed to lose Of course this paper has no clinical aim as I the logical line of research and discourse when am neither a medical doctor nor a clinical one comes across a certain literary text or some * Graduate School of Education The University of Tokyo 1) There are two principal forms of eating disorders anorexia nervosa and bulimia In this paper I discuss principally on anorexia nervosa － 94 － Osamu Kanamori∶ Cultural Morphology of Eating Disorders extra-medical topics while thinking through an the topics of cultural analysis of disease At eating disorder case or vice versa It is as if I first Sander Gilman s Disease and Re- were assisting in evaporation of eating disorders presentation3)(1988) Gilman seems to be into social sphere itself To say a little bit more wandering around this topic in an untrammeled concretely I will try to cite and analyze certain way Susan Sontag s Illness and Metaphor4) materials that seem to be peripheral or irrelevant (1978) and AIDS and its Metaphor5)(1989) are for the discussion of eating disorders and to take known as interesting essays on tuberculosis cognizance of the fact that these purportedly cancer and AIDS On hysteria I refer to Elain peripheral and circumferential materials can Showalter s The Female Malady 6) (1985) Janet influence what might be called the essence of Oppenheim s Shattered Nerves7)(1991) and Janet eating disorders or our understanding of it This Beizer s Ventriloquized Bodies8)(1994) Paula penchant for perturbation of clear-cut dichotomy Treichler writes a cultural study on AIDS in her of concepts looks like the style often adopted in How to Have Theory in an Epidemic9)(1999) postmodern arguments Well I am conscious of And Patricia McEachern tries to treat exactly this resemblance because I think that the mode eating disorders in her Deprivation and Power 10) of being of this malady is really suitable for (1998) but it seems to me that this essay is not postmodern discursive sphere a great success I am also conscious that this highly theoretical I hope that my essay is able to enrich even setting of problem is not useful for clinical field only a slight level this important topic As a But even for such an awful malady like eating matter of course I use principally historical or disorder human spirit can situate itself with literary documents for my analysis I open certain distance from suffering patients at least for succeeding four files avoiding redundant a while objectify the disease and dissect the commentaries and similar variations of argument elements to understand closely what it is I also obey to this old evil of human spirit2) 2 Caterina File Instead of beginning immediately the work I would like to cite here some books that constitute When we are interested in culture thought 2) Of course saying this does not mean at all that I dont care the suffering of many women under the eating disorders 3) Sander Gilman Disease and Representation Ithaca Cornell University Press 1988 4) Susan Sontag Illness and Metaphor New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1978 5) Susan Sontag AIDS and its Metaphor New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 1989 6) Elain Showalter The Female Malady New York Pantheon books 1985 7) Janet Oppenheim Shattered Nerves New York Oxford University Press 1991 8) Janet Beizer Ventriloquized Bodies Ithaca Cornell University Press 1994 9) Paula Treichler How to Have Theory in an Epidemic Durham Duke University Press 1999 10) Patricia McEachern Deprivation and Power Westport Greenwood Press 1998 － 95 －醫史學 제13권 제1호(통권 제24호) 2004년 6월 and history on eating disorders we confront Caterina made up her mind to live for God almost certainly some women in European and forgets every funny things of secular world middle age as historical interesting figures that But the family doesn t want that she give up this is to say certain women who ate almost secular world They fight each other during nothing and respected for their love for God several months But finally the father under- and their religious ascetic practices Their mode stands her wish and tells the other member to of being is called anorexia mirabilis Among this respect her religious conviction kind of women we must not forget one of the About after the age of sixteen years old most famous one named Caterina da Siena Caterina begins to dislike the odor of meat and (1347-80) Using as principal document Rudolph eat nothing but bread raw vegetable and water Bell s Holy Anorexia 11)(1985) I try to sketch She doesn t speak very much flagellates herself succinctly Caterina s life during long time enough that her back begins to bleed And after twenty-one years old Caterina Caterina was born as one of twins in 1347 loses furthermore her appetite and cannot eat only one year before the devastating prevalence of even bread At twenty-five years old she loses Black Death in entire Europe The other one of almost all of her appetite and if she tries to eat twins was named Giovanna When she was six something before people who doubts that she years old she saw a vision but told it to must be a sorcerer she has to vomit what she nobody In twelve years old the family urges eats reluctantly All that she eats since then is her to make up her face for the preparation of some bitter herb and cold water And for this marriage She resisted at first but her elder herb she only masticates for some time and sister Bonaventura said to her that women are disgorges its substance after a while permitted by God to make their toilet for better At the beginning of 1380 Caterina decides to appearance Caterina obeyed to her advice For give up drinking water for its symbolic pre- some time Caterina seems to live like many ciousness of Christ s blood She knows that this other women but the death of beloved decision will take necessarily her life but doesn t Bonaventura in delivery changed everything change her decision After three weeks of trial Caterina blames herself for the death of she stops this asceticism of no water but this Bonaventura because she flirts sometimes with a experience damages enormously her already secular world and thus provokes ire of God So weaken body and she will leave this world in Caterina begins to meditate upon God Another the same year unfortunate incident attacks her mind Giovanna This is approximately Caterina s life Think- is dead in 1363 within a year of death of ing on her life we are inclined to pose Bonaventura 11) Rudolph Bell Holy Anorexia Chicago The University of Chicago Press 1985 chap 2 － 96 － Osamu Kanamori∶ Cultural Morphology of Eating Disorders immediately the next question Was Caterina a women of anorexia mirabilis including Caterina? patient of anorexia nervosa? Joan Brumberg author of important book Shocked with the misfortune of the family and entitled Fasting Girls12) (1988) poses also this losing gradually her appetite Caterina fights interesting question13) She expresses certain against her own family during months for her life malaise when she hears English contemporary design In her era being pious is a socially psychiatrist assume that Saint Wilgefortis with her appreciated quality so Caterina is a good girl in hirsuteness must be a patient of anorexia a social sense In this sense she has a social nervosa14) After some hesitation Brumberg portrait of being fundamentally a good and serious concludes that we must not identify ancient girl but she fights with her family for a while women of anorexia mirabilis with patients of since some bitter experiences She must be anorexia nervosa Certainly there are some perfectionist obstinate sensitive and has a resemblances between the two But while it is strong volition All of these qualifications and true to say that ancient women of anorexia profiling fit with the profiling of anorexia nervosa mirabilis didn t eat almost anything what were patient Besides that the fact that she spits out they searching aiming and longing for? As for bitter herb after

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