Last Resort - Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine

Klappentext During the 1940s and 1950s, tens of thousands of Americans underwent some form of psychosurgery; that is, their brains were operated upon for the putative purpose of treating mental illness. From today's perspective, such medical practices appear foolhardy at best, perhaps even barbaric; most commentators thus have seen in the story of lobotomy an important warning about the kinds of hazards that society will face whenever incompetent or malicious physicians are allowed to overstep the boundaries of valid medical science. Last Resort, first published in 1998, challenges the previously accepted psychosurgery story and raises new questions about what we should consider its important lessons. Zusammenfassung This book! first published in 1998! revisits the period in the 1940s and 1950s when tens of thousands of Americans were operated on for mental illness. By exploring the history of psychiatry as a discipline and a medical specialty! it explains why so many trusted and caring physicians believed that the procedure benefited their patients. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Psychiatry's renaissance; 2. Sufficient promise; 3. Certain benefit; 4. Active treatment; 5. Human salvage; 6. Localized decisions; 7. The politics of precision; 8. Medicine controlled; Epilogue and conclusion; Appendix.

Product details

• Authors: Jack Pressman, Jack D. Pressman, Jack D. (University of California Pressman, Pressman Jack D.
• Assisted by: Colin Jones (Editor), Charles Rosenberg (Editor)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 13.02.1998
• EAN: 9780521353717
• ISBN: 978-0-521-35371-7
• No. of pages: 576
• Series: Cambridge Studies in the Histo; Cambridge Studies in the Histo; Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; USA, neurosurgery, MEDICAL / Psychiatry / General, MEDICAL / History, MEDICAL / Surgery / Neurosurgery, Psychiatry, History of Medicine, United States of America, USA