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Mania

A Short History of Bipolar Disorder

David Healy
Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease

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This provocative history of bipolar disorder illuminates how perceptions of illness, if not the illnesses themselves, are mutable over time.

Beginning with the origins of the concept of mania—and the term maniac—in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, renowned psychiatrist David Healy examines how concepts of mental afflictions evolved as scientific breakthroughs established connections between brain function and mental illness. Healy recounts the changing definitions of mania through the centuries, explores the effects of new terminology and growing public awareness of the disease...

This provocative history of bipolar disorder illuminates how perceptions of illness, if not the illnesses themselves, are mutable over time.

Beginning with the origins of the concept of mania—and the term maniac—in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, renowned psychiatrist David Healy examines how concepts of mental afflictions evolved as scientific breakthroughs established connections between brain function and mental illness. Healy recounts the changing definitions of mania through the centuries, explores the effects of new terminology and growing public awareness of the disease on culture and society, and examines the rise of psychotropic treatments and pharmacological marketing over the past four decades. Along the way, Healy clears much of the confusion surrounding bipolar disorder even as he raises crucial questions about how, why, and by whom the disease is diagnosed.

Drawing heavily on primary sources and supplemented with interviews and insight gained over Healy's long career, this lucid and engaging overview of mania sheds new light on one of humankind's most vexing ailments.

Reviews

Reviews

If David Healy's intent is to present a cohesive, thorough, integrated and provocative account of the history of the concept of mania and the evolution of what is currently called bipolar disorder, he is tremendously successful.

Healy reminds us that we need to ask ourselves what it means to be ill and what it means to be well.

A learned and polemical volume in the series Biographies of Disease published by the Johns Hopkins University Press... Healy is an intellectual bomb-thrower, a most erudite and clever doctor with an anarchic streak that he cannot quite reconcile with disinterested historical inquiry. He is interesting precisely for the subtle detonations that he sets off in the reader’s mind, rattling the received ideas too comfortably ensconced there.

A powerful political tract. As social history it provides the most detailed available account of the interactions of psychiatry and the world of pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Provides a probing and challenging commentary on the state of contemporary psychiatry.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
5.5
x
8.75
Pages
320
ISBN
9781421403977
Illustration Description
3 line drawings
Table of Contents

Foreword, by Charles E. Rosenberg
Preface: Stories about Mania
Acknowledgments
1. Frenzy and Stupor
2. Circling the Brain
3. Circular Madness
4. The Stone of Madness
5. The Eclipse of Manic-Depressive

Foreword, by Charles E. Rosenberg
Preface: Stories about Mania
Acknowledgments
1. Frenzy and Stupor
2. Circling the Brain
3. Circular Madness
4. The Stone of Madness
5. The Eclipse of Manic-Depressive Disorder
6. Branded in the USA
7. The Latest Mania
8. The Engineers of Human Souls
Coda: The Once and Future Laboratory
Notes
Index

Author Bio
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David Healy

David Healy is a professor of psychiatry and the director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine at Cardiff University. He is the author of several books on the history of psychopharmaceuticals, including Let Them Eat Prozac, The Antidepressant Era, and The Creation of Psychopharmacology.
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