Book Review: Law, Liberty and Psychiatry

Abstract

Insanity has long been generally recognized as a form of disease, in principle no different from measles or arthritis. But if the erstwhile lunatic is now considered "sick," yet his sickness remains a peculiar variety of disease; consciously or unconsciously, most people regard it as embarrassing or even disgraceful. It is a cliche of humor that the average man will readily regale his friends with an account of the adventures of his colon, liver or vermiform appendix, but it is a highly exceptional man who will favor them with an account of his last bout with paranoia. The stigma that attaches to the disease is shown by the progressive euphemism which is so marked a feature of its lexicon: we have gone from "madness" to "insanity" to "mental illness" to "nervous disorder"; from "raving" to "violent" to "disturbed." Offhand, I can think of but one other instance in medicine in which there has been a concerted effort to soften the harsh name of a dreaded malady: that is the attempt to rechristen leprosy as "Hansen's Disease."