Epilepsy knowledge at Margarethahemmet
New neurology and medico-pedagogy shaped Swedish residential care and schooling for children with epilepsy, 1915–40.
Source
Institutional care and education: circulation of knowledge about epilepsy in Sweden 1915-40
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Epilepsy knowledge at Margarethahemmet
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Margarethahemmet opened at Knivsta, outside Uppsala, in 1915.
The period under investigation extends from the opening of the epilepsy home in Knivsta, outside Uppsala in 1915, until the resignation of Henry Marcus as the home’s attendant doctor
Aim?
study the impact of new medical knowledge about epilepsy on the treatment and education of children with epilepsy in Sweden in the first half of the twenti
What they did
The study reads Margarethahemmet yearbooks, Henry Marcus’s networks, and Slagsta teacher training against German literature.
What they found
Neurology split from psychiatry. Knowledge circulated through European networks; only women were thought suited to teach the ‘feeble-minded’. Care was both medical and educational, making children more ‘educable’ in staff eyes.
The limits
What it doesn't show
This is a Swedish institutional knowledge history, not a trial of modern anti-seizure drugs.
Key terms
- Margarethahemmet
- Epilepsy home at Knivsta near Uppsala, opened 1915; case study institution.
- Circulation of knowledge
- Analytic: knowledge works by moving and transforming across sites, not only by being ‘discovered’.
- Medico-pedagogy
- Combined medical and educational approach to children labelled epileptic or feeble-minded.
- Henry Marcus
- Medical inspector whose Stockholm and foreign contacts brought epilepsy science into the home.
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Quiz yourself
Margarethahemmet opened in?
Common questions
Why Margarethahemmet?
It shows how new epilepsy science changed operations and schooling.
Who could teach?
In this Swedish tradition, only women were thought suited.
Heart, brain, hand?
Slagsta training activated all three so children could learn by ability.
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