Review by Choice Review
Many first saw madness as caused by demons; then, with Christianity came the view that Satan fought with God for the souls of men, and that madness reflected Satan's victory. Early on, the mentally ill were the responsibility of family members. Later, the mad were housed with the homeless in "poor houses." Slowly, various asylums for the mad were built--Bethlem, starting in 1247 in England, followed by others. This led to the beginning of psychiatry as a science for managing patients. In the 1600s, competing and quasi-medical beliefs emerged that attempted to look rationally at madness, though intimations of this can be seen in the much earlier views of the Greeks. Scientists attempted to classify mental disorder as, e.g., melancholia, mania, idiocy, and dementia. At the same time, conflicts between organic and psychological models emerged. More sophisticated and complex psychiatric systems with professional organizations and journals followed. These diverse changes did not occur in any linear or sequential way; one change frequently overlapped another. Porter interestingly tells all of this in 200 pages organized in nine chapters, accompanied by 28 illustrations and a 12-page annotated bibliography. Useful for general audiences, undergraduate students, and perhaps high school students. D. Harper University of Rochester
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Medical historian Porter authoritatively traces how Western culture has explained and treated insanity. Holes bored in 7,000-year-old skulls indicate the earliest assessment of madness as spirit-possession. The ancient Greeks and medieval and Renaissance philosophers influenced by them replaced possession with irrationality as the cause of madness and exorcists with physicians as its curers. The Enlightenment stressed folly as the mark of madness; romanticism reacted by considering genius akin to madness. Asylums arose to secure the insane for their own good, and newly emergent psychiatry developed several ostensibly successful asylum strategies. As asylums became overloaded with incurables, however, disillusionment induced underfunding. Freud and his spawn came to psychiatry's rescue, but madness persists despite a century of psychoanalysis and of listening increasingly to what the insane say about their conditions. New drugs quash symptoms but have undesirable side effects, including dependency. Meanwhile, the medical profession is divided about the legitimacy of psychiatry. An ideal introduction to its subject, and a timely supplement to Robert Whitaker's superb Mad in America[BKL D 15 01]. Ray Olson.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
No branch of medicine faces as much popular skepticism as psychiatry. In this readable yet rigorous little book with a global slant, Porter (social history of medicine, University Coll., London; The Greatest Benefit to Mankind) addresses that controversy by recounting the history of mental illness from antiquity to modern times. A wealth of facts and literary references illuminate how people went from believing that supernatural forces cause mental illness to their reliance on more rational and naturalistic explanations, culminating in today's combination of the medical and psychosocial models. Porter also discusses topical issues, including the relationship between lunacy and creativity; the drive to institutionalize, which peaked in the mid-20th century; the rise and demise of psychoanalysis; and the development of the antipsychiatry movement. This book combines the appeal of history as narrative with the intellectual stimulation derived from cogent analysis. Less comprehensive than Edward Shorter's A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac but more academic than Alex Beam's Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America's Premier Mental Hospital, it will engage both general readers and psychiatry students with its sparkling prose and a well-annotated bibliography. Highly recommended. Antoinette Brinkman, M.L.S., Evansville, IN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A generously illustrated and pocket-sized distillation of the ways madness has been perceived and treated, from ancient times to the present. Highly acclaimed medical historian Porter (Social History of Medicine/Univ. College London; The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity, 1998, etc.) traces changes in attitude toward madness all the way from prehistoric beliefs in demonic possession to the contention of some modern theorists that mental illness simply does not exist. He demonstrates how beliefs in supernatural causes were challenged by Greek medicine, which developed an explanation based on the four bodily humors (blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile), and how that approach was subsequently adopted by Western medicine. With generous use of quotations, he illustrates how in the 17th century new organic theories of insanity linking mind and body began to emerge, leading to the hope that those with mental disorders could be helped through retraining of their minds. Porter examines the drive toward institutionalization, how practical psychiatry developed from the experience of asylum managers, and how disappointment with the results of benign "moral therapy" led to the growing belief that madness was probably hereditary and incurable, which in turn led to compulsory confinement, sedation, and even sterilization. He chronicles the rise and decline of psychoanalysis, both Freudian and non-Freudian, the enormous impact of psychopharmacology, and the proliferation of psychotherapies designed to treat the astonishing number of conditions labeled as mental disorders in the American Psychiatric Association's current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. For those whose appetite will have been whetted by this literate little introduction, Porter appends a well-annotated selection of readings on aspects of his subject just touched on here. A small book that raises big questions about the profession of psychiatry and the notion of scientific progress. (28 b&w illustrations, many of them etchings and engravings from the 16th to 19th centuries)
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