A History of Psychiatry: From the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac

doi:10.1056/NEJM199707033370120

Volume 337:58		July 3, 1997		Number 1

A History of Psychiatry: From the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac

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By Edward Shorter. 436 pp. New York, John Wiley, 1997. $30. ISBN 0-471-15749-X.

It was with some trepidation that I opened Edward Shorter'snew book, A History of Psychiatry, fearing that I would finda tedious and turgid tome. But no. Here is a crisp, feisty accountthat never loses momentum, is frequently entertaining, yet isalways meticulously researched. Shorter pulls no punches ashe takes us through the triumphs and catastrophes, treatmentsbrilliant and bizarre, that have punctuated psychiatry overthe past 200 years. There was hydrotherapy, the rest cure, thetransorbital lobotomy, and the "Georgia Power Cocktail" (a formof punitive electroconvulsive therapy prescribed at the 10,000-bedGeorgia State Sanatorium, a . . . [Full Text of this Article]