Preprint Articles

In 1950, the First World Congress of Psychiatry took place in Paris. Gathering more than two thousand people, the event became a stage where many issues were negotiated for the psychiatric discipline in particular but also for the way of doing science of which the international conference was one of the most widespread practices. Between two wars—World War II and the Cold War—defining the international community was complex. Recently awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine, psychiatry as a discipline negotiated its boundaries between biological and/or social determinants. This boundary work was framed by a narrative that underlined the novelty of the process—the first congress—and the materiality of a congress that also legitimized itself through a particular place, the Sorbonne in Paris.

Today, many patients and health care providers feel they lack sufficient discretionary time to maintain personal health and offer high-quality care. While this problem seems strictly modern, the Roman-era physician Galen of Pergamon also recognized that time scarcity has adverse health effects and proposed strategies to mitigate them. This article critically examines Galen’s approach and its relevance today. The study demonstrates that Galen understood time scarcity to affect individuals across divisions of class and civic status and that he believed the time-scarce could, by adopting certain strategies, achieve a kind of good health. Nevertheless, Galen is clear that optimal health demands leisure. Read in the modern day, Galen’s arguments highlight how time scarcity can deepen financial and identity-based health inequities while simultaneously transcending typical demographic categories. Though Galen’s solutions focus on individual choices, his argument’s implications should also encourage modern readers to pursue collective, structural change.