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Dark Tales of Illness, Medicine, and Madness

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Dark Tales of Illness, Medicine, and Madness Dark Tales of Illness, Medicine, and Madness Dark Tales of Illness, Medicine, and Madness: The King Who Strangled his Psychiatrist By Robert M. Kaplan Dark Tales of Illness, Medicine, and Madness: The King Who Strangled his Psychiatrist By Robert M. Kaplan This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Robert M. Kaplan All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-3389-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-3389-9 To my mother, Phoebe Kaplan (1920-2018) CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Adventurers Maurice Wilson: Everest’s ......................Everlasting Amateur ................. 8 Harold Lasseter:Too Close Flying to the ........................ Sun .................. 13 Deceivers MS: Turning Torment into ...........................Trauma ............................... 22 Shirley Ardell Mason: The........................... Sibyl Saga .......................... 36 Milan Brych:nt Medical Maligna Fraud ................................................... 44 Belle Gibson:anceecepti Theof onD D .................................................... 52 Leaders Ludwig 11: The King who Strangled.................. his Psychiatrist 60 ............ Otto von Bismarck:ncellor The and Cha his.................. Herring ............. 64 Max Jacobson: Celebrity Doctors.................. and their Dangers 74 ............. Arnold Hutschnecker: The President’s...................... Shrink ................... 81 Assassins Edward Charles and Edward Antonyntial Spitzka: The Brains of Preside Assassins .................................................................................................. 88 Lee Harvey Oswald:ssassin The as A Nonentity.................... .................. 94 Dr Hendrik Verwoerd: The Assassins................ of Madness 101................. viii Contents Artists James Joyce: Portrait of............................... an Artist ............................ 112 Forrest Bess: Hermaphrodite........................ Visionary ......................... 120 Killers Bernard Spilsbury: Doctor A Charismatic and his........... Discontents 128 ... Arnold Sodeman: The School-girl..................... Strangler ..................... 135 Karl Kast: Most Murder Medical ........................................................... 139 Lowell Lee Andrews:ther Coldood The Killer Bl O ............... ............... 147 Ira Einhorn: The Unicorn.......................... Murderer ............................. 153 Louis and Sabina Van Schoor: The.......... Family that 158 Kills Together ... Donald Harvey: Health The Loss Care of Innocence............... .............. 162 Kermit Gosnell: The House........................ of Horrors .......................... 169 Illnesses Bernadette Soubirous: The..................... Healing Broom ....................... 176 RM Renfield:der by Mur Death .............................................................. 184 Bee Miles: Eccentricityand Encephalitis......................... ...................... 191 Machado and Joseph:y for A a Long Protein Wa ........... to Travel......... 200 Three Christsti: of The Ypsilan Trinity Unholy ..................................... 203 Amanda Feilding:king of The Modern Lea Minds............... .................. 213 Joni Mitchell:hing to Scratc Death ......................................................... 216 Dark Tales of Illness, Medicine,ix and Madness Doctors Dr James Barry: The First Woman..................... Doctor ........................ 224 Leander Starron: The James “If” Man .................................................... 233 Hermann Rorschach: The Analyst................... of Inkblots .................... 241 Viktor Tausk and-Hellmuth: Hermineh Trouble Hug Couc......... .......... 245 Johann Scharffenberg: Hero of............ the Norwegian 253 Resistance ........ Humphry Osmond: The Psychedelic................ Psychiatrist................... 259 Postlude .................................................................................................. 270 References for Readers................................... ........................................ 271 Acknowledgements ................................................................................ 275 PROLEGOMENON (REALLY A FANCYAY OF W SAYING INTRODUCTION) The art has three factors, the disease, the patient, the physician. The physician is the servant of the art. The patient must cooperate with the physician in combatting the disease. —Hippocrates Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body. —James Joyce, Dubliners There are worse occupations in the world than feeling a woman’s pulse. —Lawrence Sterne For a king to strangle his psychiatristational as this is a unique event. Sens is, can it tell us anything abouts and patients?the world of doctors, disease The answer is yes. Patients doctorsdo kill their murder doctors, just as some their patients. This is only ccurone example in the of the extremes that o world of illness. While animals and plants get diseases,defining illness is a unique and feature of the humant reflects condition. oure environment,feelings I we th have, the society we live in.ugs It in is Petri not organs dishes in bottles, or b but the whole event; history andpicture. geography And are never out of the the most frequent mediator betweenis the doctor, the patient and the illness descendent of the ancient healer,tor. shaman, magician and witchdoc The basis for our conception of the illness school goes back 2000 years to of Hippocrates - whether such anatter individual of existed remains a m debate. What matters is that theor theschool established the basis f discipline we know today as medicine.r granted, Conditions we now take fo such as hysteria,nd gout, melancholia were clearly. a Many delineated symptoms which wereo ephemeral attributed causesmas t were such as mias designated as dysfunctions ofe gods, the body, as we not visitations from th now know them to be. 2 Introduction From this arose the Hippocraticand the triad: disease. the doctor, the patient The interaction between these we three know as constitutes the human state illness. All illness is social; what ccursvaries and is thethe context in which it o interaction between those threed, confusing axes. For illness is complicate and often disturbing, an intrinsic, deeply part of the human experience embedded in our awarenessback as the as first fartch humans. doctor A wi going into a trance is regarded a midwife as a healer. In the Middle Ages who delivers stillborn childrench. Inis theburned at the stake as a wit twentieth century, some people paralysis in the American South with sleep – a phenomenon documented back as biblical as far that days they – insist have been abducted by alien beings.herer tribe If a member of a hunter gat fell over, twitching and frothinght to atbe the mouth, they were thoug infested by evil spirits. The the cure shaman, was a healing dance in which in a trance state, would relievee time them of the of their suffering. By th Romans and Greeks, many of those people were revered for their connections with gods. When Jesus touch, did if his healing, the power of not special words, were sufficientmedieval to drive out the demons. In times, to behave like that wasvil seen and as could a visitation from the de lead to burning was at onlythe stake. with theology It rise in of the neur nineteenth century that epilepsyt it was. began But to be recognised for wha for a long time, such patientsill were and stillkept in regarded as mentally psychiatric wards. With the rise of scientific medicine,nd disease, the if gap between illness a anything, widened. Disease was somethingat that could be removed operation, seen through a microscoper death. and found in the body afte Illness, by contrast, was not complained material. of, It was what the patient could persist despite being surgicallyed – and, of removed or medically cur course, it vanished at death. Here lay the basis of a persistingr the anddoctor, ever-growing problem. Fo what could not be seen, poked, dprodded, was a heard, tested or remove dilemma: the only explanation soul lay or in mind. the patient’s imagination, This laid the basis for enormousempts dispute to and confrontation. Att unify the problem, such as psychoanalysiscine, or psychosomatic medi never really resolved the issue.to arise, And much if difficulty continued not fester. These issues laid bare the roleprocess. of the Thedoctor in the treatment idea that takinginary a history process iss – questionsa the b doctor and ask Dark Tales of Illness, Medicine,3 and Madness the patient dutifully providesnstantly the required shown information – is co to be a myth; itcess is rather where botha pron allparties sorts bring of i issues, conscious and unconscious, discuss to manipulate the agenda. To this in any detail would not require. Instead, just a book, but a library selected issues that highlightness the are process that occurs with ill provided with the cases, orre shall provided. we rather say stories, that a King is a distrait1 voyage through the main elements
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