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OverviewThe prevalence of insanity, which was once considerably less than one case per 1,000 total population, has risen beyond five cases in 1,000. Why has mental illness reached epidemic proportions? What are the causes of severe mental illness? Why do we continue to deny the rising numbers, and how does this denial affect our ability to help those who are afflicted? In The Invisible Plague, E. Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller examine the records on insanity in England, Ireland, Canada, and the United States over a 250-year period, concluding, through both qualitative and quantitative evidence, that disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar illness are an unrecognized, modern-day plague. This book is a unique and major contribution to medical history. Until now, insanity, and its apparent rise over the centuries, has been interpreted as a socially and economically driven phenomenon. Torrey and Miller insist upon the biological reality of psychiatric disease and examine the reasons why its contemporary prevalence has been so profoundly misunderstood. Full Product DetailsAuthor: E. Fuller Torrey , Judy MillerPublisher: Rutgers University Press Imprint: Rutgers University Press Edition: First Paperback Edition Dimensions: Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.70cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.737kg ISBN: 9780813542072ISBN 10: 0813542073 Pages: 458 Publication Date: 06 July 2007 Audience: College/higher education , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print  This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsReviews"Combines a meticulously researched history of the sharp increases in the prevalence of serious mental illness with the changing societal reactions to this relatively invisible plague. Interwoven throughout is a brilliant unprecedented review of dozens of fictional writers such as Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Yeats, Joyce, Melville, and others, their personal or family history of serious mental illness and its evidence in their writings. . . . The book is an all-too-rare combination of medicine, history, sociology, anthropology, and literature which will play an important role in making all the more visible this plague in our society and hopefully causing society to move much more effectively to do something about it.--Public Citizen Health Research Group ""Health Letter"" Important and provocative. By insisting on the biological reality of insanity, the authors pose a major challenge to the current tendency to view concepts of mental illness and mental institutions as a means of incarcerating unproductive individuals and enforcing capitalist hegemony.--Gerald N. Grob ""author of The Mad among Us: A History of the Care of AmericaÆs Mentally Ill"" In their refreshing, thoroughly documented, cogent reply to the current generally accepted interpretation of the incidence and even the existence of insanity, Torrey and Miller point out many holes in the arguments of other recent historians of the subject and donÆt push any single approach to schizophrenia and manic depression. Instead, they ask for a spirit of inquiry because so much about the rate of growth and the causes of mental illness remains unclear. . . . There is enough history of diagnosis and treatment in the U.S., England, Ireland, and Canada to fascinate readers whose favorite topics isnÆt numbers. . . . Frequent reference to literary works and authors lightens the tone of the proceedings, as does the authorsÆ hypothesis of a relationship between the wearing of stockings and the incidence of insanity.-- ""Booklist"" Torrey is a distinguished US researcher in psychiatry, a prolific writer for both scientists and the public, and director of the Stanley Foundation. His extensive work on schizophrenia . . . has led him to be increasingly critical of conventional views that the frequency of [mental] illness does not vary much worldwide and has not varied over time. . . . This view of schizophrenia as a new and epidemic disease has not gone unchallenged. Historians following the philosopher Michel Foucault see the rise of asylums as the removal of troublesome people form general society, although examination of how the early institutions were set up shows that humanitarian concern was the strongest motive. . . . If there was an epidemic, though, it must have had a cause. The authors argue that ænovel approachesÆ are needed to investigate what this was. . . . This highly informative and stimulating work has certainly raised some neglected questions that demand more serious scientific attention. For one thing, the burgeoning cities of developing countries might be a fertile soil for schizophrenia, although there is no evidence yet that this is happening.-- ""Nature""" Author InformationE. Fuller Torrey, M.D., is a research psychiatrist, associate director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, and professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Judy Miller is a senior research assistant at the Stanley Medical Research Institute. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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