The History of Medicine

This week, we talk about convulsive therapy, or using seizures to treat mental illness, and then upgrade it using electricity. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we pick some people's brains... literally. Leucotomies AKA lobotomies were first tried in Portugal, but quickly spread. Probably a little too quickly, we can say with hindsight. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we finally start trying to treat severe mental illness. The earliest progress dates back to around the 1920s, which is when we started giving patients fevers on purpose, and dropping their blood sugar to induce comas. Not a great start. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

Sorry this is a little late, was a bit under the weather last week.This episode, we talk about the creation of the Feigner criteria, which Spitzer used to radically change the DSM-III, and finally, the DSM-III gets released for real.Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we learn about Robert Spitzer, who would someday lead the effort to create the third edition of the DSM. But first, we learn about his interesting path to involvement with the DSM at all, and his role in de-classifying homosexuality as a mental illness. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we talk about some of the weaknesses of the early DSM, namely that diagnosis was still pretty inconsistent, which leads to another credibility crisis for psychiatry. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, the lack of standards for diagnosis cause problems for the US military, and finally the psychiatrists themselves, leading to the creation of the first edition of the DSM. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week we'll talk about the origins of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM for short. It starts with the United States census very unscientifically trying to study mental illness,  and Emil Kraepelin fixing things up over in Europe. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

Sorry, no episode this week! My editor Jojo is sick, and I don't want to give her a big backlog of episodes to review until she's better. Stay safe everyone, and hopefully you'll hear from me next week. Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! 

This week, we talk about how psychoanalysts take over the practice of psychiatry in the United States, successfully infiltrating the American Psychiatric Association, Hollywood, and even a little bit of the government.Check out our website!E-mail me!Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!