Vincenzo Chiarugi: La pazzia y el reglamento de Bonifacio en los orígenes de la psiquiatría moderna

Abstract

Vincenzo Chiarugi was director of St Boniface’s Hospital between 1788 and 1818.Based on his experiences in this institution he produced two works we now centuria di osservazioni, published in 1793, where madness is treated as a unity centered in the term pazzia, which can present three clinical aspects: melancholy, mania and amencia, that remind us largely of Pinel’s alienation. Also, in pazzia we find the firstreference to the conception of mental illness as a clinical and evolutive entity, and 2) The Regulation of Boniface, published in 1789, where he exposes the institutional and legal aspects of pazzia. From the analysis of both works we believe we can state that Chiarugi’s conception is at the basis of modern psychiatry disciplinary matrix.