A Treatise On Insanity: In Which Are Contained The Principles Of A New And More Practical Nosology Of Maniacal Disorders Than Has Yet Been Offered To The Public

by Philippe Pinel

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Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

362 pages, Paperback

First published February 6, 2010

About the author

Philippe Pinel was a French physician, precursor of psychiatry and incidentally a zoologist. He was instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of psychiatric patients, referred to today as moral therapy. He worked for the abolition of the shackling of mental patients by chains and, more generally, for the humanisation of their treatment. He also made notable contributions to the classification of mental disorders and has been described by some as "the father of modern psychiatry".

After the French Revolution, Dr. Pinel changed the way we look at the crazy (or "aliénés", "alienated" in English) by claiming that they can be understood and cured. An 1809 description of a case that Pinel recorded in the second edition of his textbook on insanity is regarded by some as the earliest evidence for the existence of the form of mental disorder later known as dementia praecox or schizophrenia, although Emil Kraepelin is generally accredited with its first conceptualisation.

"Father of modern psychiatry", he was credited with the first classification of mental illnesses. He had a great influence on psychiatry and the treatment of the alienated in Europe and the United States.

Reviews

[Swavik Dittmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first English edition of a seminal textbook by Pinel on mental disorders. Its second edition has a far superior and more recent translation by Hickish, Healy and Charland, one that I can recommend, unlike this dated translation. Five stars because of its significance.