Madness: A Brief History
Roy
Porter
Oxford University Press,2003
£7.99, 254 pages
ISBN 0 192 80267 4
Rating:****
As
thousands of medical students past and present will testify, Roy Porter
was an exceptional teacher and medical historian. His untimely death at
55 continues to haunt those of us lucky enough to have enjoyed meeting
him.
Fortunately, he was
also a prolific writer who wrote or edited more than 100 books. His
last book was a history of madness from prehistory to today.
Madness: A Brief History opens with the ancient Greeks and their
attitudes towards mad people. Greek gods control men and the Furies,
three terrible winged goddesses, punish them. Heroes are driven mad
with grief or guilt, but their agony is often a path to wisdom, much
like Shakespeare's Lear. Myths, epics, dramas, and transgressions
make an exciting and fast paced first
chapter.
Porter's book is
hugely comprehensive. Witness the rise, triumph, and fall of asylums
before turning to medicine's disparate models of mania and
melancholia. Madness: A Brief History does not shy away from
controversial topics such as historical links between madness and
genius or the disappointments of treatment failures associated with
psychosurgery and
psychoanalysis.
Throughout
the book, literature, life stories, and historical texts are interwoven
as Porter places perceptions of madness in context. Porter's
language is arresting, eloquent, and accessible. He does not treat his
historical subjects as side show entertainment, but with respect. This
is their history as well as that of those variously purporting to
understand, persecute, or care. Stories about stigma, shame, and
seclusion are illuminated by 28 illustrations, including
Dürer's engraving Melancholia, plates from
Hogath's Rake's Progress, and a 20th century patient
in a
straitjacket.
Detailed
references and further reading provide inspiration for those seeking
answers to the tricky questions that this book leaves. For instance,
are we progressive thinkers or"pacifying patients with
psychotropic drugs"? Has the proliferation of psychiatry
benefited our collective mental health, or is it
responsible for our victim
culture?
At
first glance, this is a fascinating paperback history of madness. On
closer inspection, however, Madness: A Brief History is
something much rarer-a book to marvel at and be enthralled
by.
