by Charles Mercier (Author), Graeme Newman (Author)

In 1901, the physician and alienist Charles Mercier set out to do something almost nobody had attempted: build one complete theory of mind that covered sanity and insanity alike, on the theory that you cannot understand madness until you understand the ordinary mind it departs from. The result is this book — four hundred pages of sustained, systematic ambition, mapping sensation, thought, will, memory, pleasure, pain, and the sense of self as a single connected machine, with delusion treated not as a foreign invasion of the mind but as ordinary belief, strained past its working tolerance.

It is a genuinely strange book to read now, and that is exactly why it's worth reading. Mercier's nervous system runs on "motion," flowing through tissue like steam through pipework — a mechanical metaphor pushed further than the science of the day could really support. He proposes scrapping the syllogism in favor of six modes of reasoning entirely his own invention, argued with total seriousness across a hundred pages, and it persuaded almost nobody. His system did not outlast the decade. And yet buried inside the wreckage of that system is a genuinely durable idea: that delusion sits on a continuum with everyday belief, rather than in a category of its own — a claim psychiatry spent most of the twentieth century arguing its way back to.

This new edition presents Mercier's text in full, extensively cleaned of over a century of accumulated OCR and scanning damage, with British-Victorian spelling and phrasing left exactly as written. A new critical introduction by Graeme R. Newman situates the book against its contemporaries — it appeared eleven years after William James's Principles of Psychology and just before Freud reached English readers — and reads it honestly: neither a lost masterpiece nor a curiosity, but a serious system that got some of the biggest questions in psychiatry wrong in interesting ways, and one genuinely important thing right early.

What's inside:

• The complete original text of Mercier's 1901 classic, unabridged

• A new critical introduction assessing Mercier's system against James, Freud, and the psychiatry that followed

• Extensive restoration of scan-damaged passages, with any unrecoverable material left honestly marked rather than guessed at

• Six major sections: Sensation, Thought, Volition, Memory, Pleasure and Pain, and Subject-Consciousness

Companion volume: How to Run a Lunatic Asylum, Mercier's 1894 administrative manual, applies the same systematizing temperament at the scale of the institution rather than the mind.

For readers who enjoy:

• The history of psychiatry and psychology before Freud

• Victorian and Edwardian systems of thought — ambitious, confident, and often wrong in illuminating ways

• Primary sources that reward a critical rather than a reverent reading

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 397p.

By Alison L. Cammack, Mark R. Stevens, Rebecca B. Naumann, Jing Wang, Wojciech Kaczkowski, Jorge Valderrama, Deborah M. Stone, Robin Lee,

What is already known about this topic?

In 2022, approximately 49,000 persons died by suicide in the United States. A comprehensive approach that addresses health-related community factors, such as health care access, social and community context, and economic stability, could help prevent suicide.

What is added by this report?

Suicide rates were lowest in counties with the highest health insurance coverage, broadband Internet access, and income. These factors were more strongly associated with lower suicide rates in some groups that are disproportionately affected by suicide.

What are the implications for public health practice?

Implementing programs, practices, and policies that improve the conditions in which persons are born, grow, live, work, and age might be an important component of suicide prevention efforts. Decision-makers, government agencies, and communities can work together to address community-specific needs and save lives.

MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. ePub: 10 September 2024. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7337e1.

By Abby Chin

At the Olympic Games Rio de Janeiro 2016, world champion and Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova walked into the Olympics Aquatics Stadium not to cheers, but to the sound of boos.2 The crowd, and many athletes, condemned Efimova as a drug-using outcast who should not be allowed to compete in the Games. At the Rio Olympic Games, Efimova was one of seven swimmers from the Russian Federation who were formerly banned from the competition due to previously failed drug tests and the “World Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation into state-sponsored doping.”3 However, after an intense arbitration process, Efimova and her teammates were approved for competition. Efimova’s doping dispute began in 2013 when she received her first positive drug test and served a sixteen-month suspension.4 Next, in 2016, she tested positive for meldonium—the substance at issue for the alleged Russian state-sponsored doping.5 However, because meldonium did not officially become a banned substance until January 2016, many athletes claimed that, although they were no longer actively taking it, they were still testing positive because traces of meldonium were left in their system.6 This left a question about who would decide an athlete’s future competition eligibility after a positive test. While many different agencies were involved, Efimova’s positive drug test came from the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA). A positive test usually leads to a suspension, which athletes can appeal through the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS). However, because the positive test results occurred in an Olympic year—and with the was scrutiny of the entire Russian Olympic Federation—the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would also influence the outcome of the doping investigation.7 In its press release, the IOC stated athletes who had served prior suspensions unrelated to meldonium would be banned.8 If meldonium was the athlete’s first offense, it was up to the individual federations governing each sport to decide the fate of each individual athlete.9 However, the IOC decision conflicted with CAS precedent, which allowed athletes to return to competition with a clean slate after serving their entire suspension for a positive drug test.10 As a result, there was confusion and uncertainty as to whether these Olympic athletes could compete.11 Efimova appealed to the CAS, requesting to be reinstated to compete as she had already served her suspension. The CAS, believing it was inappropriate to ban athletes like Efimova for having already served suspension, granted the appeal.12 Efimova was able to compete in Rio despite the backlash of many other competitors and nations.13 Whether Efimova deserved the backlash, it became clear there was a significant problem with the uncertainty and lack of knowledge as to the appropriate process for punishing athletes who tested positive. Through the different rulings of the three major governing bodies involved, Efimova was placed under rigid scrutiny, in part because people did not understand the disciplinary process, her right to an appeal, and her right to receive relief from her sanction. This Note will examine the effect of the governing bodies, specifically during an Olympic year, on athletes involved in doping disputes and suggest a more streamlined arbitration process for the governing bodies to use when determining the eligibility of athletes in doping disputes. Currently, the arbitration process lacks transparency and efficiency because of the arbitrator selection process, the costs associated with bringing a dispute in front of an appeals panel, and the mandatory nature of arbitration in international sports. Hence, to create more just dispute outcomes, the arbitration process should become more informal, and athletes should be given the option for a final appeal. Section II of this Note discusses the different governing bodies and their processes for dealing with doping disputes. Section III demonstrates how the different governing bodies work around each other when handling disputes. This section also analyzes the positive and negative impacts of the way in which governing bodies work together. Section IV explores Efimova’s doping dispute in depth to provide an example of the arbitration process. Section V specifically describes the current concerns with the CAS arbitration process and ultimately offers a possible solution for a better-streamlined dispute process, such as modifying the current arbitration and arbitrator selection proceedings or allowing for an appeal from a CAS arbitrator decision.

OHIO STATE JOURNAL ON DISPUTE RESOLUTION [Vol. 33:3 2018]

By Fredrik Sivertsson, Christoffer Carlsson, Ylva B. Almquist, Lars Brännström

Aim

The current study explores heterogeneity in the aggregate age-crime curve. This is achieved by analyzing to what extent there is empirical support for the existence of pivotal typologies in developmental and life-course criminology, as well as whether there is any heterogeneity in trajectories among adult-onset offenders (first recorded for crime at age 25 or later).

Methods

Data were drawn from a population-representative birth cohort of 14,608 males and females, followed prospectively in registers from age nine to 64. Trajectories of antisocial and criminal behavior were identified by means of group-based trajectory modelling.

Results

A small group with a high prevalence of crime across the life course, among both males and females, was found. Furthermore, a large proportion of offenders were adult-onset offenders, and there was meaningful heterogeneity in their criminal trajectories. However, the data did not lend much support to the hypothesized phenomenon of late-blooming.

Conclusion

There is meaningful heterogeneity in the aggregate age-crime curve, including trajectories that resonate fairly well with predictions derived from Moffitt's taxonomy. Nevertheless, there are firm reasons for theorizing proximate causes for the onset and continuation of crime beyond emerging adulthood.

Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 91, March–April 2024, 102155, 24 pages

By Michael Nishimura

As opposed to limiting the scope of anti-Asian violence to “hate,” this article frames anti-Asian violence as inextricable from U.S. empire. Building on Go (2020) American Journal of Sociology 125 (5):1193, I theorize what I call the “imperial feedback loop” to conceptualize anti-Asian violence within a postcolonial and transnational context. Using a series of life history interviews, I chart the pathways of two Cambodian American refugees along the migration-to-school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline. I find that cyclical and intergenerational trauma, the criminalization of Cambodian youth, and refugee deportability sustains the psychological and structural violence of the imperial feedback loop. I relate these findings to Du Boisian scholarship on criminality and imperialism and Asian Americanist scholarship on refugee subjectivity. I conclude by suggesting the interruption of the imperial feedback loop through anti-PIC and anti-border organizing and scholarship that critiques the roots of imperial violence and builds toward abolitionist democratic futures.

United States, Sociological Inquiry. 2023, 22pg