Mental Health and Insanity
Jean-Yves Blondeau, Rollerman
His Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 22, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Bicycles and Other Human-powered Vehicles, Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Europe, Mental Health and Insanity
Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 17
Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 22, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Death, Family, Children, Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal, 1930s, Mental Health and Insanity
The Opal
Read it here. Spoiler: it's all very bland.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Sep 30, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Literature, Magazines, Nineteenth Century, Mental Health and Insanity
Solacen lightens the load of worry
I'd worry too if I had a giant crow standing behind me.
Circa 1967. Reproduced in The
Medical Runaround (1973) by Andrew Malleson.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 13, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Advertising, 1960s, Mental Health and Insanity
Eight Songs for a Mad King
Essay detailing history of the piece here.The creator's Wikipedia page.
Let us know when you bail.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 31, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Eccentrics, Music, 1960s, Mental Health and Insanity, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
RIP Jerry Samuels, aka Napoleon XIV
An obit is here.His Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 11, 2023 -
Comments (3)
Category: Music, 1960s, Mental Health and Insanity
Curing insane women by beauty treatments
I doubt this actually cured anyone, but as the article notes, it was certainly an improvement on the old way of treating mental illness.Rouge, powder, lipsticks, eyebrow pencils and all the other implements of artificial beauty are provided, so that the women can make up to their heart's content, regardless of the somewhat weird results sometimes obtained... It is a part of the system to let the "customer" direct her own beautification as much as is possible.
Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph - July 14, 1929
Click to Enlarge
Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 14, 2023 -
Comments (3)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, 1920s, Mental Health and Insanity
Geel, Belgium: Eight Centuries of Deinstitutionalized Treatment for Mental Patients
From the Wikipedia page:Geel is well known for the early adoption of de-institutionalization in psychiatric care.[3] This practice is based on the positive effects that placement in a host family gives the patient, most importantly access to family life that would otherwise have been denied. The legendary 7th-century Saint Dymphna, who had fled to the Geel area from Ireland, is usually credited with this type of care. The earliest Geel infirmary and the model where patients go into town, interact with the community during the day, and return to the hospital at night to sleep, date from the 13th century.[4]
Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 13, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Communes, Utopias, and Other Alternative Societies, Europe, Mental Health and Insanity
Asneezia, Part 2
Two weeks ago I posted about 'Asneezia,' which was the name that a doctor in India (G.D. Shukla) gave to the condition of being unable to sneeze. His non-sneezing patients also suffered from mental illness. He published his report about Asneezia in 1985.I was somewhat skeptical about the reality of Asneezia. But yesterday, purely by chance, I came across the newspaper story below from 1958 about doctors at a New England psychiatric hospital who noted the odd fact that their patients never suffered from allergies, and so never sneezed. "If you hear a sneeze," one of them said, "you can know it's a staff member's."
As far as I know, Dr. Shukla (reporting about Asneezia in 1985) was unaware of this earlier report from 1958. But having two independent reports of a connection between not-sneezing and mental illness, from different times and different cultures, would seem to confirm the reality of the condition.
Boston Globe - June 16, 1958
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 07, 2022 -
Comments (0)
Category: Health, Mental Health and Insanity
Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 11
In 1952, a schizophrenic with an eccentric theory of physics murdered a random person.“Have they dropped the electronic theory?” he asked her.
“I don’t know anything about it,” she replied.
Before she could say more, he fired the gun at her.
“I just wanted to kill somebody,” he told police. “I was going to shoot anybody. It was my book. They wouldn't look at my book. They wouldn't even look at it."
Peakes had done the calculus: Shooting people gets you in the papers. And if you shoot physicists because they rejected your theory, your theory gets in the papers.
Full account here.
The initial coverage below.
Article source: The South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Indiana) 15 Jul 1952, Tue Page 1
Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 02, 2022 -
Comments (0)
Category: Death, Science, Scary Criminals, 1950s, Mental Health and Insanity
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |