Issue of the American Journal of Insanity

“I am tempted sometimes to think that no person goes mad . . . who does not show more or less plainly, by his gait, manner, gestures, habits of thought, feeling and action that he is predestined to go mad.”

This quote (by a Professor Maudsley) in the October,1872 issue of the American Journal of Insanity, shows clearly that many noted psychiatrists–called alienists at the time–believed they could predict who might eventually go insane. Unfortunately, alienists had little ability to prevent this madness, beyond advising potential patients to avoid certain triggers that might bring it on. Such triggers included overwork, over-excitement, riotous living, worry, financial setbacks, grief, and so on.

Group of Prominent German Alienists

Even more unfortunately, many alienists believed that insanity was rooted in physical causes that could be hereditary. This view had the potential to put anyone who had mental illness within the family in limbo, waiting to see if the illness would manifest. And because it was so often considered hereditary, having a family member with insanity was a barrier to marriage unless its cause could be positively attributed to an unusual circumstance like a blow to the head, sunstroke, or other purely physical cause.

This Eugenics Certificate Shows the Public’s Fear of Undesirable Hereditary Traits, courtesy Robert Bogdan Collection

It is certainly sad to think that many people waited and worried their entire lives over an issue that had no potential to materialize.