This essay is a study about how Carl Ulrik Sondén, a Swedish doctor during the 19th century, described and with his descriptions medicalized religious ecstasy in his thesis from 1842. The essay uses Vera Syrakvash theoretical model of medicalization to analyse how Sondén medicalized religious ecstasy, Chorea s:t Viti, to show how his thesis plays a part in the medicalization of Chorea s:t Viti. Sondéns medicalization, and how it is a part of the secularization that took place in Sweden during the 19th century is also discussed. To analyse this, Thorleif Pettersson’s work about secularization is used, and Sondéns thesis is applied to Petterssons theory of the three levels of secularization. The essay shows how Sondéns thesis fills all three of Syrakvash’s levels of medicalization and therefore fully medicalizes Chorea s:t Viti. This medicalization is then applied in to Pettersson’s theoretic model, and it fulfils the first level of secularization.

Denna undersökning behandlar den småländska predikosjukan, vilken uppkom och spreds bland den småländska allmogen år 1841-1843. Av de uppskattningsvis flera hundra fall som behandlades av läkarkåren bestod den övervägande majoriteten av kvinnor. Undersökningen är medicinhistorisk och syftar till att undersöka hur den religiösa epidemin beskrevs, förstods och 2 tolkades som en sjukdom under 1840-talet. Således utgörs undersökningens källmaterial av läkarkårens utsagor, genom bl.a. provinsialläkarrapporter och skrifter. Undersökningen har utförts med ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv i enlighet med medicinhistorikern Roy Porters teorier, och består av en kontextnära och tematiskt orienterad närläsning. Inom den tidigare forskningen har predikosjukan främst undersökts som en av 1800-talets väckelserörelser, där allmogens agerande förstås som en upprorshandling mot en ”överhet” bestående av myndigheter, prästerskap och läkarkår såväl som det borgerliga skiktet. Benämningen av fenomenet som en sjukdom, förstås i tidigare forskning endast som ett bildligt uttryck och som en del av en medveten strategi för att slå ned väckelserörelsen. Undersökningen visar att läkarkåren förstod predikosjukan just som en sjukdom och behandlade den därefter. Sjukdomsdefinition och behandlingsmetoder gjordes i enlighet med rådande medicinvetenskapliga grundantaganden. Diskursen om den småländska predikosjukan aktualiserade en rad olika för tidsperioden rådande föreställningar om kropp, själ, sjuklighet, kön och religion. Inom den medicinska förståelsen av predikosjukan inbegrep dessa föreställningar ständigt i varandra, och innebar en komplicerad sjukdomsbild vilken i hög utsträckning var både kulturellt och tidsligt betingad. / This study centers around ‘the preaching disease’ (predikosjuka), an illness which arose and spread among the peasantry in the Swedish province Småland between 1841-1843. Out of the estimated hundreds of cases treated by the medical profession, the vast majority consisted of women. The disease was quickly described as epidemic, and had strong religious connotations. The purpose of the study is to examine how this religious epidemic was described, understood and interpreted as a disease in the 1840’s. Thus, the source material consists of the accounts of the medical professionals, mainly through provincial medical reports and medical publications. The study has been carried out with a social constructivist perspective in accordance with the theories of medical historian Roy Porter, and consists of a contextual and thematically oriented close reading. In previous research, ‘predikosjukan’ has mainly been examined as one of the 19th century Christian revival movements. Here, the activities of the peasantry are understood as a rebellious act against a vaguely defined ‘power’ consisting of authorities, clergy and doctors as well as the bourgeois class. Previous research has understood the phenomenon as only a sickness by the name, as a figurative expression and as part of a conscious strategy to suppress the revival movement. This study shows that the doctors who was confronted with ‘predikosjuka’ during the 1840’s understood the phenomenon as a disease, and chose to treat it accordingly. The doctors’ definitions and medical methods were made in accordance with prevailing and fundamental medical notions of the time. The discourse about ‘predikosjuka’ encapsulated a number of different notions about body, soul, morbidity, gender and religion, all deeply entrenched in the 1840’s. Within the medical understanding of the disease, these notions constantly intertwined, which made for a complicated clinical picture, which to a large extent was both culturally and temporally conditioned.