Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine

ISBN-13: 9780521353717 / Angielski / Twarda / 1998 / 576 str.

Jack Pressman; Charles Rosenberg; Colin Jones

Opis

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 challenges the previously accepted psychosurgery story and raises new questions about what we should consider its important lessons.

Recenzje

'It is impeccably researched, and Pressman has an ear for the telling quotation: and it transcends One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest caricatures to offer a balanced counter to the anti-psychiatry onslaught, seeking to understand the psycho-surgeon without providing an apologia for them.' Roy Porter, The Times Higher Education Supplement

Spis treści

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.