American Madness: The Rise and Fall of Dementia Praecox by Richard Noll
English | Nov. 28, 2011 | ISBN: 0674047397 | 408 Pages | PDF | 2 MB
English | Nov. 28, 2011 | ISBN: 0674047397 | 408 Pages | PDF | 2 MB
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.