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The psychiatric oligarchs who medicalise normality | BMJ www.bmj.com NotesCite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e3135

Former patients protest psychiatrist convention - Philadelphia Inquirer ... forpn.blogspot.com Former patients protest psychiatrist convention. Philadelphia Inquirer yelled Faith Rhyne, a North Carolina woman who belongs to MindFreedom

“The psychiatric oligarchs who medicalise normality.” « International So... forpn.blogspot.com Mental health should be a priority for all societies and its stigma always challenged. However, the US Centers for Disease Control and Preve

Updates to psychiatric guide spur controversy - Washington Post | Suicid... forpn.blogspot.com Updates to psychiatric guide spur controversy. By N.C. Aizenman, Saturday, May 5, 7:14 PM. A panel of psychiatrists charged with updating th

10:31 PM 5/5/2012 - General Psychiatry News forpn.blogspot.com The American Journal of Psychiatry Current Issue; Academic Psychiatry Current Issue; Archives of General Psychiatry current issue; The Briti

Cognitive neuropsychiatric aspects of Delusional Disorder "are poorly un... forpn.blogspot.com Neuropsychological aspects of delusional disorder. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2008 Jun;10(3):229-34. Authors: Abdel-Hamid M, Brüne M Abstract Delu

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Behavior and Law: Behavior and Law - News Review - Today, May 05, 2012

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Behavior and Law: Mike Nova: American Psychiatry and Jewish Insecurities: "American Psychiatry itse

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Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology and the issues of Behavior and Law with occasional notes and comments by Michael Novakhov, M.D. (Mike Nova).

Mike Nova: American Psychiatry and Jewish Insecurities: "American Psychi... forpn.blogspot.com American Psychiatry and Jewish Insecurities I am fully aware that being a Jew does not provide automatic immunity against accusations of ant

Study of prison chaplains sheds light on faith behind bars - San Antonio... forpn.blogspot.com Movies and television portray hardened criminals cursing God and everyone else. In reality, many inmates worship God and practice their fait

Prison Psychiatry News forpn.blogspot.com candidaabrahamson; Criminal Justice and Behavior recent issues; Faktensucher; go it alone (together); Prison Watch Network; prison gangs - G

Hebephilia update: DSM-5 workgroup stubbornly clinging to pet diagnosis ... forpn.blogspot.com The open letter has garnered more than 100 signatures, many from prominent forensic psychologists and psychiatrists in the U.S. and internat

How American Psychiatry Can Save Itself: Part 2 - Psychiatric Times forpn.blogspot.com Dr Pies is Editor in Chief Emeritus of Psychiatric Times and Professor in the psychiatry departments of SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syr

How American Psychiatry Can Save Itself: Part 1 - Psychiatric Times forpn.blogspot.com [Note: For Part 2 of Dr Pies' article, click here.] Charles Dickens might well say of American psychiatry, “These are the best of times

APA TV Annual Meeting 2012 | forpn.blogspot.com Watch APA TV, the 2012 Annual Meeting video highlights from the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, May 4 - 9. Each daily APA

Psychiatric News Alert: APA Invites Third Round of Public Comment on DSM-5 forpn.blogspot.com For a third and final time, the American Psychiatric Association is inviting public comment on the proposed criteria for the upcoming fifth

Death Penalty Climate Changing - Mike Nova's starred items forpn.blogspot.com On April 25, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy (pictured) signed into law a bill that replaces the death penalty with life without parole.

In the news by Karen Franklin PhD: Open letter opposing DSM-5 paraphilia... forpn.blogspot.com As readers of this blog are aware, proposals to expand the sexual disorders in the American Psychiatric Association's upcoming DSM-5 hav

Allen Frances, M.D.: "The grand dream is lost - now at least make sure y... forpn.blogspot.com The prize for the most wayward of all the DSM 5 work groups must surely go to the sexual disorders group—creators of three remarkably off-be

Mike Nova: BREIVIC SYNDROMESaturday, April 28, 2012Psychiatry's identity... forpn.blogspot.com To Anders Breivik, the 'feminisation' of the European male corresponds to the 'feminisation' of Europe itself

Breivik trial forces Norway to look again at insanity - Updated News forpn.blogspot.com The penal codes of most Western countries allow for punishment to be adjusted according to the severity of the criminal act. In addition, th

Children in Solitary - Forensic Psychiatry News forpn.blogspot.com As any parent knows, teenagers are different than adults. This common-sense observation is backed by hard scientific evidence; we know that

APA Announces New Changes to Drafts of the DSM-5, Psychiatry's New “Bibl... forpn.blogspot.com Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology a

Sports Psychiatry: "players need to get their brains examined before the... forpn.blogspot.com Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology a

DSM-5 Debate: Committee Backs Off Some Changes, Re-Opens Comments | Heal... forpn.blogspot.com Sharing With FriendsAdd TIME to your Timeline to automatically share TIME stories, photos and videos with your Facebook friends. Share Only

APA Announces New Changes to Drafts of the DSM-5, Psychiatry’s New “Bibl... forpn.blogspot.com I have this slim silver book on my desk called the “Quick Reference to the Diagnostic Criteria From DSM-IV-TR.” Page 153 reads: Schizophreni

Speculation Arises about the Role of Concussions in Another NFL Player’s... forpn.blogspot.com NFL legend Junior Seau died today after reportedly shooting himself in the chest, according to various news reports. What prompted the appar

Telepsychiatry, neuromodulation, the role of genetics, and updates for t... forpn.blogspot.com Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology a

...Breivik Insane - VIDEO | Anders Behring Breivik Cries in Court - VIDE... forpn.blogspot.com Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology a

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Forensic and Prison Psychiatry News Review - 3:47 PM 5/3/2012 - Mike Nov... forpn.blogspot.com By Alicia A. Caldwell Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating how its agents forgot about a colle

Mass killer Breivik demands medal from Oslo court - YouTube forpn.blogspot.com http://www.euronews.net/ Anders Breivik, the man who admitted killing 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree in Norway last year, has app

Hitler is informed about Anders Behring Breivik's Manifesto.wmv - YouTube forpn.blogspot.com Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology a

“You really ought to be absolutely sure before you strap a person down a... forpn.blogspot.com Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology a

Psychodynamic aspects of Delusional Disorder - Mike Nova: Psychoanalytic... forpn.blogspot.com Psychodynamic aspects of Delusional Disorder - Mike Nova: Psychoanalytic theory is deadeningly mechanistic and hopelessly outdated, but at t

Allen Frances, M.D.: Wonderful News: DSM 5 Finally Begins Its Belated an... forpn.blogspot.com Sigh of relief. The DSM 5 website announced this morning that two of its most controversial proposals have finally been dropped. We have dod

Forensic Psychiatry News Review - 5.2.12 - Mike Nova's starred items forpn.blogspot.com Psychometric properties of the Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments with a juvenile justice sample. Assessment. 2011 Dec;18(4):428-41. A

General Psychiatry News Review - 5.2.12 - Mike Nova's starred items forpn.blogspot.com The American Journal of Psychiatry Current Issue; Academic Psychiatry Current Issue; Archives of General Psychiatry current issue; The Briti

Selected Blogs Review - 5.2.12 forpn.blogspot.com Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology a

Breivic Trial News Review - 5.2.12 - Mike Nova's starred items forpn.blogspot.com Comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and Psychology a

Being Bilingual Brings Mental Health Benefits forpn.blogspot.com Individuals who are bilingual appear to have superior sound-processing skills, Northwestern University researchers reported today in the Pro

Prison Psychiatry Review - 5.1.12 - Mike Nova's starred items forpn.blogspot.com But Mr. Colson, who found Jesus shortly before entering prison, remade himself as a free man, in 1976 founding what became Prison Fellowship

Behavior and Law: Read it in your language forpn.blogspot.com Breivik Síndrome de Down: Grandiosa - tipo de trastorno delirante persecutorio de los asesinatos en masa con el resultado de una búsqueda me

Mike Nova: Some open questions in Breivik Trial forpn.blogspot.com Mike Nova: Some open questions in Breivik Trial. What is the role of the mysterious Belorussian woman whom Breivik met in Belarus and who vi

Новости, деловые новости - Известия izvestia.ru Известия

Homophobic? Maybe You’re Gay - NYTimes.com forpn.blogspot.com In recent years, Ted Haggard, an evangelical leader who preached that homosexuality was a sin, resigned after a scandal involving a former m

Response to Dr. Wessely forpn.blogspot.com Response to Dr. Wessely. Normality or psychopathology of belief or belief system is determined first of all by the intrinsic qualities of be

Breivik Says His Psychiatrists Don’t Understand Political Violence | Fin... financialfeeder.net Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian behind last summer’s twin terror attacks, today blasted a forensic psychiatric report deeming him insa

Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik refuses to recognize court as trial... photoblog.msnbc.msn.com Ian Johnston, msnbc.com reports — Anti-Islam militant Anders Behring Breivik admitted he had killed 77 people in a massacre last July, but s

Breivic Trial News Review - Mike Nova's starred items - 5:21 PM 4/25/2012 forpn.blogspot.com A comprehensive collection of links to news and journal articles on General, Forensic and Prison Psychiatry and the issues of Behavior and L

8:12 AM 4/24/2012 - flamenco - YouTube - Mike Nova's starred items prnewslinks.blogspot.com Flamenco (Spanish pronunciation: [flaˈmeŋko]) is a genre of music, song and dance from Andalusia in southern Spain, noted for its energetic,

Цитаты ораторов митинга в Москве стали лозунгами в Нью-Йорке www.ria.ru Представители русской диаспоры в Нью-Йорке вышли в субботу днем на митинг в поддержку движения "За честные выборы", вдохновленные событиями

Six days in the company of a mass murderer - | Anders Behring Breivik T... forpn.blogspot.com Madness, badness, sadness. Bangkok Post First, one of the prosecutors of the Norwegian court read out the names and details of each of the 7

Ъ-Online - Американские конгрессмены призвали Facebook к ответу www.kommersant.ru Проблема уязвимости личной информации пользователей социальной сети Facebook вышла на государственный уровень. Американские конгрессмены обр

Mike Nova: What makes Breivik's thinking and concepts abnormal and delus... forpn.blogspot.com Mike Nova: What makes Breivik's thinking and concepts abnormal and delusional? Although arising from "legitimate" and relative

6:45 AM 4/19/2012 - News Review - Mike Nova's starred items prnewslinks.blogspot.com via Puerto Rico News - Archive Links's Facebook Wall by Puerto Rico News - Archive Links on 4/19/12. Jueves Jueves Jueves 19 de abril de

Robert Mccarroll: "I think it's a huge honor for all Puerto Ricans." - "... prnewslinks.blogspot.com Comprehensive collection of newslinks to Puerto Rico, Caribbean and Latino culture - Colección comprensiva de newslinks a Puerto Rico, el Ca

Does Breivik suffer from DELUSIONAL DISORDER? forpn.blogspot.com 2012 (32). ▼ April (30). Does Breivik suffer from DELUSIONAL DISORDER? Breivik Trial - Day 3 - News Review · Breivik Trial - Day 3 - News Re

News Review - 7:28 PM 4/17/2012 prnewslinks.blogspot.com via The New York Times's Facebook Wall by The New York Times on 4/16/12. Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman writes, "Rather than admit th

Mike Nova: Breivik Trial and The Crisis Of Psychiatry As Science forpn.blogspot.com Mike Nova. Breivik Trial and The Crisis Of Psychiatry As Science. Breivik is not the only one who is on this trial. Psychiatry as a science

Breivik trial: Day 2 - live reports - Mike Nova's starred items forpn.blogspot.com Helen Pidd writes. After insisting that he would have "done it again" because "the offences against my people and my fellow p

Norway massacre survivor: I can't get rid of the experience www.youtube.com As the trail of Anders Behring Brevik looms, a survivor from the massacre on the island of Utoya says that he needs to be able to get back t

Breivik's sanity to be in focus as trial opens www.youtube.com Rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in twin attacks in Norway last year, goes on trial in Oslo on Monday where

Norway prepares for Breivik massacre trial www.youtube.com Sanity of defendant Anders Behring Breivik expected to be main focus of trial into 2011 killings of 77 people. Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull repor

Norway mass murder suspect claims self-defense – CNN Security Clearance... security.blogs.cnn.com By Diana Magnay The man accused of killing 77 people in a bomb and gun rampage in Norway last summer claimed self-defense on Monday. "I ackn

Norway Breivik survivors attend trial www.euronews.com world news - Survivors and relatives of those who died at the hands of Anders Behring Breivik gathered outside the court in Oslo on Monday m

Norway gunman Breivik pleads not guilty at Oslo trial dawn.com “I acknowledge the acts, but not criminal guilt and I claim self-defence,” he told the court on the first day of his 10-week trial. told the court on the first day of his 10-week trial. Norway killer admits massacre, claims self-defense www.google.com By KARL RITTER – 16 minutes ago. OSLO, Norway (AP) — A right-wing fanatic admitted Monday to unleashing a bomb-and-shooting massacre that ki Raw Video: Confessed Killer of 77 in Court www.youtube.com The right-wing fanatic who confessed to killing 77 people in a bomb-and-shooting massacre went on trial in Oslo on Monday, defiantly rejecti Breivik Makes Far-Right Salute Entering Court www.youtube.com 04/16/2012 Anders Behring Breivik makes a far right salute as he enters the courtroom at the beginning of his trial. http://LeakSource.wordp Mike Nova | My Photo Hunt Today - Santurce Streets - 4.15.12 - 11 AM prnewslinks.blogspot.com Comprehensive collection of newslinks to Puerto Rico, Caribbean and Latino culture - Colección comprensiva de newslinks a Puerto Rico, el Ca embraceable you - YouTube prnewslinks.blogspot.com embraceable you - YouTube * EMBRACEABLE YOU Written in 1928 for an unproduced operetta called "East Is West" From the 1930 Broadwa Mike Nova | My Photos Today | The Surfer - 4.14.12 - 6 PM prnewslinks.blogspot.com Comprehensive collection of newslinks to Puerto Rico, Caribbean and Latino culture - Colección comprensiva de newslinks a Puerto Rico, el Ca Mike Nova: My Photos Today - 4.13.12 - 1:30 PM prnewslinks.blogspot.com Comprehensive collection of newslinks to Puerto Rico, Caribbean and Latino culture - Colección comprensiva de newslinks a Puerto Rico, el Ca Mike Nova: The Health Of Nations prnewslinks.blogspot.com Social class in the United States is a controversial issue, having many competing definitions, models, and even disagreements over its very Mike Nova: My Photos - Puerto Rico - January 2012 prnewslinks.blogspot.com Comprehensive collection of newslinks to Puerto Rico, Caribbean and Latino culture - Colección comprensiva de newslinks a Puerto Rico, el Ca Ъ-FM - "Путин — Мона Лиза" вызвал ажиотаж коллекционеров www.kommersant.ru Картина "Путин — Мона Лиза" была продана на закрытых торгах за €200 тыс. Портрет российского премьера в стиле неопоп-арт представили во врем Mike Nova's starred items - 5:53 PM 4/8/2012 prnewslinks.blogspot.com Puerto Rico Flag Lapel Pin. State Flag Lapel Pin; Gold Metal Lacquered Design and Clutch Pin; Baked Enamel Finish; Approx 3/4″ x 1/2″; Low C Mike Nova: A new dialect has arrived: GooglEnglish! Ah? ¿Y qué piensas d... prnewslinks.blogspot.com Mike Nova: A new dialect has arrived: GooglEnglish! Will it, like an ominous worm, or rather like a new cultural virus change and destroy th 8:01 AM 4/6/2012 - Mike Nova's starred items prnewslinks.blogspot.com Hernand Gonzalez Executive Producer and The Integrated Marketing Group, Inc., produced for Galos Corp. the agency for The National Puerto Ri Mr. Chavez Pleads To Higher Authority prnewslinks.blogspot.com Mr. Chavez Pleads To Higher Authority. "Dame vida aunque sea vida flameante, vida dolorosa, no me importa, dame tu corona Cristo, dámel Bob McCarroll: "It is the only place that I experienced this happiness t... prnewslinks.blogspot.com Bob McCarroll: "It is the only place that I experienced this happiness to be almost home on Puerto Rico 's land of beauty and joy.& 8:51 AM 4/6/2012 - UN: PR is 'happiest' place in Caribbean - Mike Nova's... prnewslinks.blogspot.com Puerto Rico is among the world's top 30 happiest countries and ranks higher than all other Caribbean islands, according to a new United Weather Forecast San Juan, PR | San Juan Weather | Wunderground www.wunderground.com Weather Underground provides local & long range Weather Forecast, weather reports, maps & tropical weather conditions for locations Sports in Puerto Rico - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org Sports in Puerto Rico can be traced from the ceremonial competitions amongst the pre-Columbian Native Americans of the Arawak (Taíno) tribes Puerto Rico News - Topix www.topix.com News on Puerto Rico continually updated from thousands of sources around the net. Puerto Rico: Sports www.topuertorico.org Baseball: Baseball fans are devoted to the sport. The season champs head out to the Caribbean Series to face championship teams from several More

Dr. Dilip V. Jeste fell in love with psychiatry while growing up in a remote village in India. - General Psychiatry News

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APA President-Elect Stresses Unity - Clinical Psychiatry News Digital Network

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APA President-Elect Stresses Unity Clinical Psychiatry News Digital Network PHILADELPHIA – Dr. Dilip V. Jeste fell in love with psychiatry while growing up in a remote village in India. "Becoming an APA member seemed like a dream," Dr. Jeste told a packed hotel ballroom May 6 during the opening session of the annual meeting of ... and more »

APA President-Elect Stresses Unity : Clinical Psychiatry News

APA President-Elect Stresses Unity : Clinical Psychiatry News

NaturalNews— Are your imperfect relationships a disease? *Psychiatry* - General Psychiatry News

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NaturalNews— Are your imperfect relationships a disease? *Psychiatry*

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The ever-expanding list of so-called psychiatric conditions included in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) may soon include relational disorders, or mental illnesses supposedly attributed to two or more people involved in a relationship together. According to the official definition, relational disorders are persistent and painful patterns of ... Citizens Commission on Human Rights International | Mental Health Watchdog ...

Abbott to Pay $1.6 Billion Over Illegal Marketing - General Psychiatry News

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Abbott to Pay $1.6 Billion Over Illegal Marketing

via NYT > Health by By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and KATIE THOMAS on 5/7/12

Abbott Laboratories said it reached an agreement with the federal and nearly all state governments to pay $1.6 billion in connection with its marketing of the anti-seizure drug Depakote.

DSM-5 Panel Tiptoes on Grief, Depression - MedPage Today - General Psychiatry News

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DSM-5 Panel Tiptoes on Grief, Depression - MedPage Today

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MedPage Today

DSM-5 Panel Tiptoes on Grief, Depression MedPage Today By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today PHILADELPHIA -- Psychiatrists writing new diagnostic criteria for major depression hope an explanatory note will mollify critics of a proposal to let patients grieving a dead loved one receive a formal ...

Study finds psychopaths have distinct brain structure - Reuters - General Psychiatry News

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Study finds psychopaths have distinct brain structure - Reuters

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Study finds psychopaths have distinct brain structure Reuters The researchers, based at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, said the differences in psychopaths' brains mark them out even from other violent criminals with anti-social personality disorders (ASPD), and from healthy non-offenders. and more »

Galen is able to demonstrate that living arteries contain blood. His error, which will become the established medical orthodoxy for centuries, is to assume that the blood goes back and forth from the heart in an ebb-and-flow motion. This theory holds sway in medical circles until the time of Harvey. - HISTORY OF MEDICINE

HISTORY OF MEDICINE

The influential errors of Galen: 2nd century AD

The newly appointed chief physician to the gladiators in Pergamum, in AD 158, is a native of the city. He is a Greek doctor by the name of Galen. The appointment gives him the opportunity to study wounds of all kinds. His knowledge of muscles enables him to warn his patients of the likely outcome of certain operations - a wise precaution recommended in Galen's Advice to doctors.

But it is Galen's dissection of apes and pigs which give him the detailed information for his medical tracts on the organs of the body. Nearly 100 of these tracts survive. They become the basis of Galen's great reputation in medieval medicine, unchallenged until the anatomical work of Vesalius.
 
Through his experiments Galen is able to overturn many long-held beliefs, such as the theory (first proposed by the Hippocratic school in about 400 BC, and maintained even by the physicians of Alexandria) that the arteries contain air - carrying it to all parts of the body from the heart and the lungs. This belief is based originally on the arteries of dead animals, which appear to be empty.

Galen is able to demonstrate that living arteries contain blood. His error, which will become the established medical orthodoxy for centuries, is to assume that the blood goes back and forth from the heart in an ebb-and-flow motion. This theory holds sway in medical circles until the time of Harvey.
Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=474&HistoryID=aa52&gtrack=pthc#ixzz1uDtUF4Ls

Science-Based Medicine » Lessons from History of Medical Delusions

Science-Based Medicine » Lessons from History of Medical Delusions

Lessons from History of Medical Delusions

Published by Brennen McKenzie under Book & movie reviews,General,History,Science and Medicine
Comments: 4

A brief reference on the web site The Quackometer recently drew my attention to a very short book (really more of a pamphlet, in the historical sense) by Dr. Worthington Hooker, Lessons from the History of Medical Delusions, which I thought might be of interest to readers of this blog. Though published in 1850, the book contains many eloquent observations that are just as relevant to understanding how pseudoscience and quackery persist and even flourish in what we otherwise assume to be an age of scientific medicine. The book is available online as a Google eBook, and relatively cheap printed facsimiles are available as well.
Dr. Hooker was a physician, a professor at Yale, and an outspoken critic of homeopathy in it’s early days. His critique of homeopathy still resonates today, and has long drawn the ire of Hahneman loyalists, such as this one who makes reference to Dr. Hooker’s, “periodical fulminations for the destruction of Homoeopathy that have appeared like locusts or cholera at certain dates.” Though Dr. Hooker wrote an entire book discussing homeopathy, Homeopathy: An Examination of its Doctrines and Evidences, he does spare a few words here for this less-than-venerated practice:

The error I have been illustrating is carried to an extreme by the Homeopathist. He attributes palpable results to doses of medicine which are so small that they cannot produce any perceptible effect except by miracle.

He also includes a lengthy and preposterous example of a homeopathic proving, taken from a homeopathic text of the time, illustrating the absurdity of simply listing every imaginable (and imagined) experience following the taking of a substance and then attributing the entire list to that substance in order to guide the selection and use of homeopathic remedies. However, the focus of this booklet is to illustrate more generally the sorts of errors in thinking that lead even otherwise intelligent and reasonable people to believe such nonsense.
And Hooker makes a specific point of reminding us that belief in medical absurdities is not by any means a characteristic only of the unintelligent, the uneducated or the past.

The history of medical delusions most copiously illustrates the truth, that folly is very far from being confined to fools.
The present generation laugh at the follies of the past but have quite as great follies of their own, an follies too of a similar character, and products of the same fundamental errors.
The majority [of believers in quackery] is made up of those who are more or less intelligent and rational on most subjects, but who…are especially deluded on the subject of medicine…The exposition I make is not a partial one. It is not a one-sided argument-a plea for the doctors against the people. But it is an attempt to show how both doctors and people have ever been liable to error, and how they have been alike in the common elements, if not in the forms and modes and fashions of their delusions.
The medical profession, like the community at large, is made up of fallible men, and the elements of delusion are the same in the one class as in the other [though] the error of the physician would be refined, and would have the pomp and circumstance of erudition.

Error gilded with the pomp and circumstance of erudition….That certainly brings a few names to mind, eh?
Some of the specific examples he uses are fine tidbits of historical minutia. Apparently, one of the founding fathers of chemistry, Bacon”>Francis Bacon, that luminary of critical thinking and scientific philosophy, advocated for applying healing salves to the weapon that made a wound rather than the wound itself (though given the loathsome nature of many therapeutic unguents of the time, this may not have been a bad idea since apply them to wounds doesn’t sound wise).
So what are the common “elements of delusion” that Hooker wishes to warn us of? He begins with the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

The first [element] which I shall notice is the too ready disposition to consider whatever follows as a cause as being the result of that cause.

He then points out the most obvious reason why this sort of reasoning so often misleads us in medicine:

The most important of the confounding causes is “vis medicatrix naturae, or the tendency there is in the system to remove disease and cure itself….there is in the system a tendency to spontaneous restoration in case of injury and disease…This tendency is the chief agency in most cases in curing disease. Sometimes it is the only one; and very often it effects a cure in spite of the mistaken and officious interference of art.
And yet quacks, and even physicians, and the public generally, are very prone to leave this agency out of view, and to attribute cures, as a matter of course, entirely to some favorite remedy which has been used. This disposition is the chief source of medical errors of all classes of men.

Hooker also touches on several other key sources of erroneous conclusions in evaluating medical theories, including confirmation bias, availability bias, anchoring, premature closure, sloppy use of analogous reasoning, passionate commitment to theories without empirical evidence, and medical fads, though all describe in a language rather more poetic than we would ordinarily use today.
He then goes on to talk about the issue of the commercial and political success of medical nonsense, which are certainly still relevant issues often discussed here.

So extensive is the popular delusion in regard to quack medicines, that the nostrum system has become an organized system, with an enormous machinery of certificates and advertisements. It has become a monstrous business interest, and is linked in with a thousand ties with other business interests. So powerful is it in this respect, that it has almost entirely subsidized the press, forcing it to be silent except when it speaks in it’s favor. The same may be substantially said when speaking of the action of legislatures on this subject.

Similarly, Hooker touches on the unfortunate aura of legitimacy that attaches to quack therapies when they are embraced by what he calls “medical men in good standing,” which could certainly be applied to the quackademic medicine phenomenon and the endorsement of medical nonsense by the likes of Dr. Oz and others.
Despite the eloquent expression of many issues associated with medical nonsense that are as relevant today as they were in 1850, not all of Dr. Hooker’s book will resonate with a modern audience. Apart from the florid prose style of the time, and the unabashedly sexist language, he scoffs a bit “the skeptic,” who he describes as sitting in “his ‘doubting castle’ well-fortified against all the shafts of truth.” He also was a fan of bloodletting as a remedy, and sneered at the research of Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis and others who demonstrated its lack of effect. In general, he was no fan of the “numerical” methods which have since developed into epidemiology, and he was overly respectful of the experience and judgment on individual doctors. Citing the same sloppy reasoning as is often used by modern proponents of alternative therapies, he argues that such “numerical observations…can be of no practical use to the physician in deciding in regard to any individual case…”
However, as a whole this little historical gem is strikingly applicable to the issues this blog deals with today. And it ends with a nice description of the gradual and imperfect process of vetting ideas through scientific inquiry, from initial unjustified enthusiasm to a gradual withering of bad ideas and a fitting of good ones into their appropriate but limited places.

While many remedies, once potent to cure in the public estimation, have….been wholly discarded, others, which have more real merit, while they have lost the extravagant reputation of their nascent state, have, under the watchful eye of experience, gradually obtained very nearly their right valuation, and the circumstances which should regulate their use have been ascertained with considerable accuracy. Others, in great numbers, are now going through this searching process; and others still are just now wearing the brilliant honors of an enthusiastic reception.

He also suggests, mistakenly I hope, that direct attacks on medical nonsense rarely have a salutary impact on the popularity of such practices. However, he also describes with some hopefulness the goal of his book, which I think to some extent describes the purpose of this blog as well.

No delusion however fiercely it may have been attacked was ever killed. Each after having withstood all assaults, has laid itself down o die in the most quiet manner, benumbed into the sleep of death by the chill of popular neglect, while the warm breeze of popular favor which it once enjoyed are now bestowed upon some other delusion…
And such exposition as this essay presents, of the common causes of medical delusion, both in the profession and in the community, will, I believe, commend itself to the reason and common sense of such persons, and will therefore have some influence, in connection with other kindred efforts, in deterring them from giving heir patronage to quackery in any form…