Appetite and Its Discontents
Science, Medicine, and the Urge to Eat, 1750-1950
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Part One Anxieties of Appetite: Created Needs in the Enlightenment, 1750–1800
Introduction to Part One
1 Why We Eat: The Ancient Legacy
2 “False or Defective” Appetite in the Medical Enlightenment
3 Human and Animal Appetite in Natural History and Physiology
Part Two The Elusiveness of Appetite: Laboratory and Clinic, 1800–1850
Introduction to Part Two
4 Perils and Pleasures of Appetite at 1800: Xavier Bichat and Erasmus Darwin
5 The Physiology of Appetite to 1850
6 Extremes and Perplexities of Appetite in Clinical Medicine
Part Three Intelligent or “Blind and Unconscious”? Appetite, 1850–1900
Introduction to Part Three
7 The Drive to Eat in Nutritional Physiology
8 The Psychology of Ingestion: Appetite in Physiological and Animal Psychology
9 Peripheral or Central? Disordered Eating in Clinical Medicine
Part Four Appetite as a Scientific Object, 1900–1950
Introduction to Part Four
10 Psyche, Nerves, and Hormones in the Physiology of Ingestion
11 Appetite and the Nature-Nurture Divide: Eating Behavior in Psychology and Ethology
12 Somatic, Psychic, Psychosomatic: The Medicine of Troubled Appetite
Epilogue: Appetite after 1950
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
Part One Anxieties of Appetite: Created Needs in the Enlightenment, 1750–1800
Introduction to Part One
1 Why We Eat: The Ancient Legacy
2 “False or Defective” Appetite in the Medical Enlightenment
3 Human and Animal Appetite in Natural History and Physiology
Part Two The Elusiveness of Appetite: Laboratory and Clinic, 1800–1850
Introduction to Part Two
4 Perils and Pleasures of Appetite at 1800: Xavier Bichat and Erasmus Darwin
5 The Physiology of Appetite to 1850
6 Extremes and Perplexities of Appetite in Clinical Medicine
Part Three Intelligent or “Blind and Unconscious”? Appetite, 1850–1900
Introduction to Part Three
7 The Drive to Eat in Nutritional Physiology
8 The Psychology of Ingestion: Appetite in Physiological and Animal Psychology
9 Peripheral or Central? Disordered Eating in Clinical Medicine
Part Four Appetite as a Scientific Object, 1900–1950
Introduction to Part Four
10 Psyche, Nerves, and Hormones in the Physiology of Ingestion
11 Appetite and the Nature-Nurture Divide: Eating Behavior in Psychology and Ethology
12 Somatic, Psychic, Psychosomatic: The Medicine of Troubled Appetite
Epilogue: Appetite after 1950
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Review Quotes
CHOICE
"This fascinating book, magisterial and yet accessible, opens up broad questions about human life and culture through a careful focus on the meaning of appetite as a central, albeit often ill examined, 'natural' human drive. . . . Chapter by elegant chapter, the author elucidates contextual changes and deftly illustrates significant arguments through focused analyses covering Hippocrates and Aristotle through 20th-century psychiatry and psychoanalysis. The limitations set by the author for cogent analysis scarcely limit the connections that will reward readers, from central themes of gender and identities to relationships of appetite and larger systems of production and consumption, especially as she poses questions linking these historical processes to contemporary issues that permeate science, medicine, and Western culture more generally. . . . Rewarding and stimulating. . . . Recommended."
Robert A. Nye, Oregon State University
"Williams has written a fascinating and comprehensive history of the efforts of Western science and medicine to elucidate the functions and dysfunctions of appetite from the eighteenth century to the present. Her analysis of the myriad disciplinary and clinical studies on this elusive entity yields new and important insights into the evolution of methods and experiments on hunger and eating in medical and scientific practice against the background of the dramatic changes in the food supply over time. This deeply learned history has lessons galore for all us contemporary eaters."
Dana Simmons, University of California, Riverside
"There is no equivalent scientific history of appetite available today. This book is the product of immense and extraordinarily wide-ranging research and it provides an important public service: it shows the narrow historical limits of current frames for thinking about appetite and obesity, and vividly brings alive other ways of thinking which once held sway. I strongly recommend it."
For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://press.uchicago.edu
Google preview here
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.