Page 80 - Winter2014

All Thumbs Book Reviews

plasm.” The advocates of eugenics determined Rockefeller money contributed cash prizes
that mental illness is inherited and the end stage to clergymen who delivered the best sermon on
of a progressive decline in a family line. A “neu- eugenics. The Reverend William Matson won
ropathy gene,” dubbed the “insanity gene,” was with his sermon when he declared, “We may raise
a recessive gene that caused mental illness. A the pig in the parlor, but he is still a pig.” In 1928
“normal” person could also be a carrier of such Rockefeller gave two and one-half million dollars
a gene. The theory of “tainted genes,” popular- to the Psychiatric Institute in Munich, Germany
ized by Aaron Rosanoff, MD, who conducted a for “eugenics research.” Alexis Carrel, a medical
medical study on the topic, became a medical doctor who won a Nobel Prize for his work at
paradigm published in The Science of Eugenics. the Rockefeller Institute, proposed in 1935 that
Thus, the only solution to stop the spread of society “dispose of criminals and the insane in
mental illness, according to the eugenicists, was small euthanasia institutes with proper gases.”
sterilization. This country’s lawmakers agreed Grounded in pervasive hatred, pedantry,
and as a consequence gave the U.S. the first laws prejudice, hubris and fear, treatments for the
for the compulsory sterilization of the mentally mentally ill reached their lowest and most de-
ill. In 1907 Indiana was the first state to pass the based levels. From the 1920s to mid-1950s the use
mandatory sterilization law followed by thirty of the insulin coma became a common treatment
other states. In 1914 Connecticut prohibited the for schizophrenia. The coma caused hemor-
mentally ill from marrying. In 1927 the U.S. rhages in the brain and destroyed nerve tissues.
Supreme Court, led by Justice Oliver Wendell The next popular treatment was metrazol shock
Holmes, in Buck v. Bell, ruled that these laws injections which produced “explosive” seizures
were indeed constitutional. After that ruling in which the “patient would arch into a convul-
forced sterilizations increased by 66 percent. sion so severe that it would break bones, cause
Doctors claimed that it had a therapeutic benefit; spinal fractures and loosen teeth.” The procedure
the sperm was conserved and the operation led was used in 70 percent of U.S. hospitals by 1939.
to an improvement in mental health. Soon it But the worst was yet to come.
was considered a “medical treatment” for the The following lines are a summary of
mentally ill. general instructions on how to perform a quick
The National Eugenics Conference of lobotomy from the medical textbook, Psycho-
The eugenics 1914 was funded by John Harvey Kellogg, the surgery (1950) written by Walter Freeman and
inventor of the boxed cold cereals. The Second James Watts, the most well-known advocates and
movement International Conference on Eugenics in 1921 performers of lobotomy, which was a procedure
arising in the was financed by Andrew Carnegie and John D. commonly performed on the mentally ill in the

late 1800s set Rockefeller, with speakers from prestigious uni- 1940s and 1950s:
versities taking their turn at the lectern discuss-
the stage ing topics such as “The Jewish Problem” and the Instead of drilling holes in the sides of
for the public cost of caring for defectives. In the same the patient’s head, Freeman attacked
development year some forty-four colleges introduced eugen- the frontal lobes through the eye sock-
ics into their curricula and taught the courses as
ets. He would use an ice pick to poke
of further a bona fide science. Academics at Harvard, Yale, a hole above each eye, insert it seven
inhumane MIT, Columbia and other prestigious colleges centimeters deep, then move behind the
psychiatric researched and published articles on the subject patient’s head and pull up on the ice pick
treatments. in The Journal of Heredity. Eugenics dogma to destroy the frontal lobe nerve fibers.
To quicken the process, he would drive
flowed into the American school system.
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