Witchcraft and Huntington’s disease: a salutary history of societal and medical stigmatisation

Abstract

Objective: This paper examines the notions that psychiatry can be greatly influenced by what society considers as ‘normal’, and that psychiatric thoughts and beliefs ebb and flow according to history and the social and cultural values of the time. Conclusions: As part of the medical profession, psychiatrists have much power in determining treatment and outcomes for patients. Unfortunately, this also means psychiatry has also been involved with the darker aspects of humanity, such as during the Nazi regime, and the abuse of patients’ human rights. Huntington’s disease (HD) is a neuropsychiatric illness from which observation and little knowledge reported by the medical profession spanned decades of incorrect and sensationalised documentation, that was also influenced by the values of the time. Such was the atmosphere of society during this period that the ideas and notions regarding HD disseminated by the respected medical profession were believed and accepted as fact by the general population and other professions, who would have been ignorant of any other contrary information. We need to be aware of social and cultural values as these can influence our understanding of diagnoses and treatments of our patients.