MEDICINE: Death for Sanity

Until recent times, the treatment of madness was a kind of desperate punishment. In medieval madhouses patients were sometimes bound in whirling chairs and spun till blood ran out of their ears. Others were plunged down steep chimneys onto a pile of writhing snakes.

Today psychiatrists again apply with scientific refinements something very like medieval shock treatment to victims of schizophrenia (dementia praecox). Most common form of insanity, schizophrenia packs 200,000 patients in U. S. mental hospitals. Whether social, psychological or physical difficulties cause schizophrenia no one knows. A schizophrenic may believe...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!