By some estimates, there are as many as twelve million psychopaths in the United States alone. Cold-blooded, remorseless, and strangely charismatic, they commit at least half of all serious and violent crimes. Supposedly, most serial killers are psychopaths, as, surprisngly, are large numbers of corporate executives. They seem to be an inescapable, and fascinating, threat in our midst.But is psychopathy a brain disorder, as many scientists now claim? Or is it just a reflection of m...

Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include Olmsted himself, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and Ray Charles, as well as (more secretly) other notables from among the rich and famous. In its "golden age," McLe...

Using rare interviews with former inmates and workers, institutional documentation, and governmental archives, Claudia Malacrida illuminates the dark history of the treatment of “mentally defective” children and adults in twentieth-century Alberta. Focusing on the Michener Centre in Red Deer, one of the last such facilities operating in Canada, A Special Hell is a sobering account of the connection between institutionalization and eugenics.Malacrida explains how isolating ...

A remarkably honest and chilling account of the anxiety and darkness that descends on a family when one of its members becomes a victim of anorexia. A must read for all families ‘Anna was making me eat myself from the inside out’ ‘A true story that will evoke a strong emotional response amongst all members of a family that has a child or sibling tormented by Anorexia Nervosa.’ ‘As real as it gets. No stone is left unturned as Grace Summer exposes the deep feelings of a mother and daughter ...

"The Physicians of Myddfai"("Meddygon Myddvai" in Welsh), or "The medical practice of the celebrated Rhiwallon and his sons, of Myddfai, in Carmarthenshire, physicians to Rhys Gryg, lord of Dynevor and Ystrad Towy", was written about the middle of the 13th century. The collection of herbal remedies are associated with Rhiwallon Feddyg (eldest son of the Lady of the Lake) , founder of a medical dynasty that lasted over 500 years and  comes from t...

Between 1941 and 1945 as many as 70,000 inmates died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northwestern Germany. The exact number will never be known. A large number of these deaths were caused by malnutrition and disease, mainly typhus, shortly before and after liberation.It was at this time, in April of 1945, that Michael Hargrave answered a notice at the Westminster Hospital Medical School for ‘volunteers’. On the day of his departure the 21-year-old learned that he was being sent ...

Questions traditional explanations for Jewish excellence in science in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Palestine in the twentieth century.Scholars have struggled for decades to explain why Jews have succeeded extravagantly in modern science. A variety of controversial theories—from such intellects as C. P. Snow, Norbert Wiener, and Nathaniel Weyl—have been promoted. Snow hypothesized an evolved genetic predisposition to scientific success. Wiener suggested...

According to the World Health Organization we are in the midst of a global obesity crisis. Is obesity a disease itself or a symptom of underlying physiological or psychological illnesses? Is it a sign of social excess and therefore not a disease in the medical sense at all? Is it really 'new'? Sander L. Gilman, a leading authority in the social and cultural history of the body, presents a fascinating account of the history of obesity, looking at the changing attitudes towards the body, fro...

The twentieth century saw two world wars and many other conflicts characterised by technological change and severity of casualties. Medicine has adapted quickly to deal with such challenges and new medical innovations in the military field have had advantages in civil medicine. There has thus been interplay between war and medicine that has not only been confined to the armed forces and military medicine, but which has impacted on health and medicine for us all. These them...

A Companion to the Classification of Mental Disorders provides essential reading as a background and supplement to both the recently produced DSM-5 and the forthcoming ICD-11. It focuses on the processes of classification and diagnosis, and the uses for these classifications. The book emphasises the dangers of regarding any current psychiatric classification as true or complete, in view of the present partial state of knowledge about the causes and mechanisms of most mental and be...

Sigmund Freud’s relationship with Otto Rank was the most constant, close, and significant of his professional life. Freud considered Rank to be the most brilliant of his disciples. The two collaborated on psychoanalytic writing, practice, and politics; Rank was the managing director of Freud’s publishing house; and after several years helping Freud update his masterpiece, The Interpretation of Dreams, Rank contributed two chapters. His was the only other name ever to be listed on ...

Current public health literature suggests that the mentally ill may represent as much as half of the smokers in America. In Smoking Privileges, Laura D. Hirshbein highlights the complex problem of mentally ill smokers, placing it in the context of changes in psychiatry, in the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, and in the experience of mental illness over the last century.Hirshbein, a medical historian and clinical psychiatrist, first shows how cigarettes func...