Edward Shorter

Edward Shorter, PhD, FRSC is the Jason A. Hannah Professor of the History of Medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and holds a cross-appointment as Professor of Psychiatry.  A social historian of medicine and clinical science, Professor Shorter has published widely in this field, including histories of obstetrics and gynaecology (Women’s Bodies, 1982; rev. 1991), the doctor-patient relationship (Doctors and Their Patients, 1991), psychosomatic illness (From Paralysis to Fatigue, 1992) and sexuality (Written in the Flesh, 2005). He is also the author of Partnership for Excellence (2013), which traces the evolution of Toronto’s academic health science network, and co-author of The Heartbeat of Innovation (2022), a history of cardiac surgery at the Toronto General Hospital.

Since the mid-1990s Shorter has emerged as an internationally-recognized historian of psychiatry and the author of numerous books on the evolution of the discipline, including A History of Psychiatry (1997), Before Prozac (2009), The Madness of Fear: A History of Catatonia (2018), with Dr. Max Fink, and The Rise and Fall of Psychopharmacology (2021).

Research Synopsis

My research in the history of psychiatry focuses on two themes: the history of psychiatric diagnosis (nosology) and the history of psychopharmacology and other somatic treatments.

Current research interests:

1. Exploring the encephalitis lethargica (EL) pandemic which accompanied the great influenza of a century ago.  Its neurological and psychiatric symptoms, while not identical, are disturbingly similar to some of the after-effects emerging among COVID patients.
2. Tracing the forgotten history of spas and watering places for the treatment of nervous diseases in German-speaking Europe.  The spa experience, once hugely popular internationally, continues to exist in parts of Europe but is now virtually forgotten in the English speaking world.