pas Koch et ses disciples dans leur poursuite du programme. L'analyse montre plutôt des bactériologistes niant les problèmes posés par le transfert vers les humains des expériences de laboratoire, et insistant sur le maintien d'une maîtrise absolue des patients. Enfin, le rapprochement des modalités de l'expédition sur le choléra de 1883-1884, à l'aube de la gloire de Koch, et celle de 1906-1907 sur la maladie du sommeil permet à l'auteur de dévoiler les liens unissant la passion du bactériologiste pour le voyage scientifique au développement de sa discipline. Quand l'expédition sur le choléra établit l'excursion scientifique comme un moyen d'assujettir la nature aux méthodes de laboratoire, il appert qu'au début du XXe siècle, celle-ci s'était transformée pour Koch en une stratégie d'évitement des critiques et de la concurrence qu'il était susceptible de subir en Allemagne.

Par ses problématiques, ses sources et ses méthodes, l'ouvrage de Gradmann constitue un apport à l'historiographie de la bactériologie médicale. Le sujet est traité avec brio et originalité; l'argumentation, solide et bien documentée. Quatre «snap-shots», comme le dit l'auteur, qui, ensemble, offrent à l'historien une meilleure représentation de la dynamique du travail de Koch: sous différents angles, l'image d'un savant tourmenté par le succès de son œuvre. Un succès qui, avec la popularité, amène une horde de chercheurs... et leurs critiques.

Louka Beaudry, Montréal (CA)

Guignard, Laurence: **Juger la folie. La folie criminelle devant les Assises au XIXe siècle.** Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2010. 296 p. (Droit et Justice). € 28.–. ISBN 978-2-13-057367-8.

Since the 1970's, the history of nineteenth-century French forensic psychiatry has become a privileged and perhaps overrehearsed field of study. In great part, this trend is owed to Michel Foucault's work, which opened up a whole new set of questions and topics for historians to explore. Among others, Robert Castel's *L'Ordre psychiatrique* (1976), Jan Goldstein's *Console and Classify* (1987) and Marc Renneville's *Crime et folie* (2003) have been notable contributions to this field. We can now add to this list Laurence Guignard's excellent *Juger la folie*.

In her first chapter, Guignard looks at the development of the concept of “penal responsibility.” She demonstrates that it did not originate in psychiatry, as it is often believed, but in psychology, and more specifically in the lawyers’ appropriation of the spiritualist philosophy of Maine de Biran and Victor Cousin. In the early nineteenth century, lawyers argued that in order to evaluate someone’s penal responsibility, the psychological motivations behind criminal acts must be investigated. This is the beginning of a “subjective” form of justice, which departs from the preceding tradition of “objective” justice that was merely concerned with external facts. The second chapter describes the slow elaboration of the famous article 64 of the French penal Code of 1810: “there is neither crime nor misdemeanor when the defendant was in a state of dementia at the time of the act, or when he was constrained by a force to which he could not resist.” It is about and around this code that psychiatrists and lawyers will debate with one another in the decades to come. Psychiatrists enter Guignard’s story only in her third chapter, in which she describes how jurists became interested in medical theories of madness, while at the same time remaining very resistant to
them. Against Foucault, Guignard argues that at least until the 1860's there was no fusion between psychiatry and the law.

To a certain extent, the first three chapters of *Juger la folie* can be thought of as a long introduction to the rest of the book. The focus of Guignard's analysis indeed shifts drastically in the six remaining and fascinating chapters. She now firmly sets foot in three judicial archives (Versailles, Rennes and Pau) and analyses 254 court records of cases that took place between the 1820s and the 1860s. Getting down to the nitty-gritty of judicial practices enables Guignard to go beyond theoretical disputes and to describe changes in sensibilities.

It would not be possible to summarise in the space of this review all the interesting results that Guignard's research yields. Let me only mention four important ones. 1.) Although the contemporary debates about the validity of the insanity defense were numerous and spectacular, from 1827 to 1865 only 0.28% of capital criminals were acquitted by reason of insanity. 2.) As the nineteenth century progressed, lawyers became increasingly open to the possibility of criminal madness, but this evolution was not a gradual one: during the July Monarchy (1830–1848) the judicial system became harsher and was less inclined to use the insanity defense than either before or after that period. 3.) The shift after 1850 from psychogenetic to organogenetic psychiatry was decisive for establishing, in the eyes of the legal profession, the institutional legitimacy of psychiatric experts. 4.) Organogenetic psychiatry stressed the etiological role of the body, but the body was seen as what gives access to the mind; in an apparent paradox, organogenetic psychiatry therefore stimulated the investigation of the psychological depths of criminals.

Let me end this review with a warning: possible side effects of reading *Juger la folie* include dizziness and the sense of being lost in a beautiful pointillist painting. Of course, these dangers are frequently associated with historical works that favor detailed archival work, and *Juger la folie* is here no exception. Thankfully, in the conclusion of her book, Guignard steps back from the archives and helpfully divides her narrative into three general phases: “Crime as Mental Alienation (1820–1836),” “Crime as Perversity (1836–1860),” and “The Emergence of a Criminological Perspective (after 1860).” These conceptual and chronological distinctions should probably have been more clearly operative in the overall organisation of the book. This is why I would advise readers to begin their reading of *Juger la folie* with the conclusion, which will help them navigate the wealth of information and ideas that this book has to offer.

Patrick Singy, New York (USA)

Guillemain, Hervé: **Chronique de la psychiatrie ordinaire.** Patients, soignants et institutions en Sarthe du XIXe au XXIe siècle. Avec des textes de Marie Lesage, Florimond Givaudan-Bourlès et Pauline Vallienne, étudiants du master recherche d'histoire de l'Université du Maine. Le Mans, Éditions de la Reinette, 2010. 143 p. Ill. € 25.–. ISBN 978-2-913566-57-6.

L'ouvrage publié par Hervé Guillemain constitue l'une des facettes d'un vaste projet culturel articulé autour du thème de la folie et de la psychiatrie en Sarthe du XIXe au XXe siècle.⁵ Du mois d'avril au mois de novembre 2010, historiens, professionnels

5 Site Internet du projet, accès le 4 octobre 2010: http://histoire-psy.univ-lemans.fr