Volume 52, Number 13 · August 11, 2005
Killing Cures
By Sherwin B. Nuland
Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine
by Andrew Scull
Yale University Press, 360 pp., $30.00
The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness
by Jack El-Hai
Wiley, 362 pp., $27.95
Major steps in scientific progress are sometimes followed closely by outbursts of foolishness. New discoveries have a way of exciting the imagination of the well-meaning and misguided, who see theoretical potentialities in new knowledge that may prove impossible to attain. On occasion, the seemingly imminent is later shown to be far further off than originally thought, yet still possible to achieve. More frequently, the apparent prospect is revealed to be the result of unrealistic hypotheses based more on wishful thinking than on fact. In no branch of human thought have erroneous leaps of this kind been more prevalent than in that peculiar mix of science and art that goes by the name of medicine.
Review, 3719 words
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