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History of Psychiatry
The Faces of Madness
January 14, 2021
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many diagnoses can it make? The photographer and psychiatrist Hugh Welch Diamond, MD, shares insights into the humanity and stigma of mental illness in Victorian England.
Nitrous Oxide and Alexander Hamilton’s Grandson
November 20, 2020
A prominent forensic psychiatrist and the grandson of founding father Alexander Hamilton, Allan McLane Hamilton, MD, was a proponent for the use of nitrous oxide for diagnostic and therapeutic use.
What Kind of Science Is Psychiatry?
October 21, 2020
Dr Pies offers an analysis of psychiatry’s place on the spectrum of science using “causality” and “meaning” as lenses.
Never Say Dye: the Roots of Modern Psychiatric Medicines in Nineteenth-Century Fabric Colorings
October 16, 2020
Weaving the story of modern psychopharmacology’s birth leads us to a most surprising origin.
The Doctors Who Cut Out Your Appendix to Fix Your Head
September 28, 2020
In the early 20th century, British and American doctors looked for the causes of mental illnesses elsewhere in the body, with gruesome results.
How Avicenna Recognized Melancholia and Mixed States—1000 Years Before Modern Psychiatry
September 22, 2020
Avicenna may have been among the first physicians to document that anger is often a transitional state from melancholic depression to mania—implicitly recognizing the “switch” phenomenon.
The Revolutionary Royalist Demonstrates the Anatomical Cause of a Psychiatric Illness
September 18, 2020
In 18th-century France, physicians searched for the causes of mental illness and debated how best to treat it.
The Walking Cure
August 03, 2020
As we slowly and cautiously work toward a practice where space can be shared between therapist and patient, perhaps Freud’s “walking cure” can be enlightening.
The First International Congress on Infantile Psychiatry
July 22, 2020
Solving the problems of “troublesome” children throughout the ages.
The Many Histories of Biological Psychiatry: Anne Harrington, DPhil
July 20, 2020
An interview with Dr Anne Harrington, who offers a stimulating and thought-provoking historical perspective on the evolution of biological psychiatry from the German histopathologists to the present time in her recent book.