Palaeophrenia: A Re-Evaluation of the Concept of Schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia may conservatively be listed among the greatest scourges of present-day society, yet the average citizen has scarcely heard of it.“The etiology … is unsettled; its pathology unknown and its clinical limits in dispute and yet it is a more serious problem than either tuberculosis or cancer. There are twice as many hospital cases of schizophrenia as of tuberculosis. Each year not less than 30,000 to 40,000 individuals, soon after adolescence or in the first flush of manhood or womanhood, fall victims to this condition. Annually 75,000 new patients are admitted to state hospitals and at least one fourth are schizophrenics…. They are condemned to a veritable living death, devoid of emotional life as others savour it and barred from participation in the normal activities and affairs of living” (1).