Book excerpt: Robert A. Nye places in historical context a medical concept of deviance that developed in France in the last half of the nineteenth century, when medical models of cultural crisis linked thinking about crime, mental illness, prostitution, alcoholism, suicide, and other pathologies to French national decline. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.