Title American Madness : the Rise and Fall of Dementia Praecox / Richard Noll

Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011

Click on the following:
EBSCO eBooks
ProQuest Ebook Central

Copies

Description 1 online resource (395 pages) Contents The world of the American alienist, 1896 -- Adolf Meyer brings dementia praecox to America -- Emil Kraepelin -- The American reception of dementia praecox and manic -- Depressive insanity, 1896-1905 -- The lost biological psychiatry -- The rise of the mind-twist men, 1903-1913 -- Bayard Taylor Holmes and radically rational treatments -- The rise of schizophrenia in America, 1912-1927 Summary In 1895 not a single case of dementia praecox was reported in the United States. By 1912 tens of thousands of people with this diagnosis were locked up in asylums, hospitals, and jails. By 1927 it was fading away. This book explains how such a terrible disease could be discovered, affect so many lives, and then turn out to be something else In 1895 there was not a single case of dementia praecox reported in the United States. By 1912 there were tens of thousands of people with this diagnosis locked up in asylums, hospitals, and jails. By 1927 it was fading away . How could such a terrible disease be discovered, affect so many lives, and then turn out to be something else?In vivid detail, Richard Noll describes how the discovery of this mysterious disorder gave hope to the overworked asylum doctors that they could at last explain--though they could not cure--the miserable patients surrounding them. The story of dementia praecox, and its eventual replacement by the new concept of schizophrenia, also reveals how asylum physicians fought for their own respectability. If what they were observing was a disease, then this biological reality was amenable to scientific research. In the early twentieth century, dementia praecox was psychiatry's key into an increasingly science-focused medical profession. But for the moment, nothing could be done to help the sufferers. When the concept of schizophrenia offered a fresh understanding of this disorder, and hope for a cure, psychiatry abandoned the old disease for the new. In this dramatic story of a vanished diagnosis, Noll shows the co-dependency between a disease and the scientific status of the profession that treats it. The ghost of dementia praecox haunts today's debates about the latest generation of psychiatric disorders Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes English Print version record Subject Schizophrenia -- United States -- Case studies Schizophrenia -- Treatment -- United States -- History Schizophrenia -- history Schizophrenia -- therapy Biological Psychiatry -- history History, 20th Century PSYCHOLOGY -- Psychopathology -- Schizophrenia. MEDICAL -- Psychiatry -- General. Schizophrenia Schizophrenia -- Treatment SUBJECT United States Subject United States Genre/Form Case studies History Form Electronic book LC no. 2011012099 ISBN 9780674062658 0674062655

  Permalink