Books by Andrew Scull

From exorcism to mesmerism, from bedlam to victorian asylums, from the theory of humours to modern pharmacology, this book tells about madness, its meanings, its consequences and our various attempts to understand and treat it.

'A riveting chronicle of faulty science, false promises, arrogance, greed, and shocking disregard for the wellbeing of patients suffering from mental disorders. An eloquent, meticulously documented, clear-eyed call for change' Dirk WittenbornIn this masterful work, Andrew Scull, one of the most provocative thinkers writing about psychiatry, sheds light on its troubled historyFor more than two hundred years, disturbances of reason, cognition and emotion - the sort of things that were once called 'madness' - have been described and treated by the medical profession. Mental illness, it is said, is an illness like any other - a disorder that can treated by doctors, whose suffering can be eased, and from which patients can return. And yet serious mental illness remains a profound mystery that is in some ways no closer to being solved than it was at the start of the twentieth century.In this clear-sighted and provocative exploration of psychiatry, acclaimed sociologist Andrew Scull traces the history of its attempts to understand and mitigate mental illness: from the age of the asylum and surgical and chemical interventions, through the rise and fall of Freud and the talking cure, and on to our own time of drug companies and antidepressants. Through it all, Scull argues, the often vain and rash attempts to come to terms with the enigma of mental disorder have frequently resulted in dire consequences for the patient.Deeply researched and lucidly conveyed, Desperate Remedies masterfully illustrates the assumptions and theory behind the therapy, providing a definitive new account of psychiatry's and society's battle with mental illness.

Brings together many of the major papers published by Andrew Scull in the history of psychiatry. These historiographic essays provide a critical perspective on such major figures as Michel Foucault, Roy Porter, and Edward Shorter. This book is useful for students and professionals of the history of medicine and of psychiatry.

Convinced that he had uncovered the single source of psychosis, Henry Cotton, superintendent of the Trenton State Hospital, New Jersey, launched a ruthless campaign to 'eliminate the perils of pus infection'. This book reconstructs a nightmarish, cautionary chapter in modern psychiatry when professionals failed to police themselves.