ABSTRACT
Characterized by diverse social composition as well as political and ethnic conflicts, late-nineteenth-century Hungary provides the exemplary model of the coexistence of fierce nationalism and fervent cosmopolitanism. The interaction of these forces deeply shaped the country’s medical and human sciences. Manifestations of a perceived degeneration within “civilization”: capitalism, socialism, feminism, anarchism, the Decadent movement, crime, high suicide rates, and insanity, became signifiers of cultural crisis that contemporary scientists translated into a language of social pathology.
