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Schizophrenia
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: Medical / Forensic Discussions:
Schizophrenia
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 17 March 2002 - 04:00 pm |        | Hi, all:
Here is a URL to an excerpt of the biography by Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 1994. Some of you may have seen the movie of the same name starring Russell Crowe.
One thing that struck me is the writer's statement that schizophrenia was first identified about 1806 and that it is unknown whether it has always existed in mankind or whether it arose as a new entity, like AIDS, with the advent of the industrial revolution. I am more inclined to think the former, but it makes for a rather alarming and novel thought to think that schizophrenia might actually have been a new disease at the outset of the nineteenth century and perhaps be a product of the new forces to which mankind was subjected in the industrial age. This might be something to think about as we ponder whether the man who was Jack the Ripper could have been a schizophrenic.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: ASEGERDAL
Friday, 29 March 2002 - 05:25 am | | Hi Chris. Interesting what you had to say about schizophrenia and the Industrial Revolution. I think we can assume this condition existed long before any industrial impact on the population, but the coming of the "factory system" and flood of workers from rural areas into the new cities would probably have had an impact on how the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia were exhibited by an individual. In the case of Jack the Ripper, yes, he could have suffered from the disease but I doubt it would have been the single cause of his actions. Far more relevant I think would have been his raging fantasies of domination and mutilation, so common in the minds of serial killers of this sort, at least according to FBI profiles of these men, conclusions I happen to agree with.
With best wishes, Alastair Segerdal |
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