Eileithyia’s Mischief: the Organic Psychoses of Pregnancy, Parturition and the Puerperium’ is a hand-crafted book with 250 pages of text (100,000 words) and 1,300 references. It is the first of a trilogy of monographs on the psychoses of childbearing.
It has the following chapters:
- Chorea gravidarum
- the Wernicke-Korsakow syndrome
- The psychopathology of parturition
- Eclamptic psychosis
- Infective delirium
- Cerebral vascular disorders
- Other psychoses linked to childbirth
- Incidental psychoses
- Conclusion
In the foreword, Alwyn Lishman wrote:
This is a remarkable and important book, beautifully produced. It traces the history and affiliations of all such disorders from a remarkably wide literature, much of which has hitherto failed to cross the language barrier. It charts the studies and conflicts of opinion that held sway in earlier times, in a manner that will be of immense interest to medical historians. Everything is illuminated by a wealth of case histories, infused with deep clinical knowledge and analysed with critical care. The result is an academic tour de force.
In the Norwegian Medical Journal, under the title mesterverk om svangerskapspsykoser, Nils Retterstol wrote:
Ian Brockington has created a masterpiece that will in due time become an important resource. With a long life of clinical work behind him, and an extensive historical literature review, he has illuminated every subject with cases past and present, many of them striking and indeed moving. On top of all this, he has himself undertaken the production of the book, which has given a beautiful result (kindly translated by Jan Øystein Berle).
In the British Journal of Psychiatry, Ian Jones wrote:
What is most impressive is the depth of research. The author has visited 20 countries across 4 continents to consult literature from the past 300 years. On a number of occasions he was the first to cut the pages of important historical publications, one example from 250 years ago. This approach to scholarship has become unusual in an age of internet searches and on-line publication.
In his review, Abram Coen described the book as un travail de titan.
110 examplars have been produced. Though perhaps not impossible, it would be difficult to print any more copies, because the text is in Pagemaker on an old computer. It is, therefore, effectively out of print. It is also somewhat out of date, and an up-date on the organic psychoses will appear in the The Psychoses of Menstruation and Childbearing, which is about to be published by Cambridge University Press.
The following libraries hold copies:
- United Kingdom: British library, Wellcome Library, National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth), Oxford University, Cambridge University Library and Gonville & Caius College, Markland library of Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists, Barnes Library of University of Birmingham, Warwick Library of History of Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry (London), National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh)
- Western Europe: Trinity College, Dublin (Eire), Oslo University Library, University of Stavanger,Bibliothek des Ärzlichen Vereins, Hamburg, L’Académie de Médecine, Paris
- Eastern Europe: Prague Psychiatric Center (Czech Republic), Cluj University (Romania),Pécs University Medical School (Hungary), Medical Faculty, Ljubljana (Slovenia), Tartu University (Estonia), Lithuanian Library of Medicine, Medical Library of Sofia (Bulgaria), National Library of Russia, St Petersburg
- China: Peking University, Sichuan University, Shanghai Mental Health Centre, Wuhan University, a medical library in Hong Kong
- India: Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, Chandigargh, NIMHANS, Bangalore, University of Manipal, Christian Medical College, Vellore
- Africa: University of Ibadan, Yaoundé University School of Medicine (Cameroun), Université Fann, Dakar (Senegal), Witwatersrand University, College of Medicine, Blantyre (Malawi)
- USA: Brown University, Rhode Island, Washington University in St Louis, Vanderbilt Medical Library, Nashville
- Other countries: Universiti Kabangsaan (Malaysia), Aga Khan University, Lahore (Pakistan)
Ian Brockington 