Anushree Jatla 1114310

Contemporary views on Abnormal psychology

During the 19^th century there existed the hygiene movement in the United States along with that saw the occurrence of the great technologies. These advances help know what is the scientific or experimentally oriented; vie of abnormal behavior and the application of scientific knowledge to the treatment of the disturbed individuals.

Therefore there are four themes which have had great influences on the contemporary perspectives.

1)      Biological Discoveries: Establishing the Link between the Brain and Mental Disorder

This period saw the development of study of the biological anatomical factors and thus led to a major biomedical breakthrough. This led to discovery of the organic factors underlying general paresis- syphilis of the brain, it produced paralysis and insanity and typically cause death within 2-5 years as a result of brain deterioration.

General Paresis and Syphilis

The cure of this disorder was discovered by French physician A.L.J Bayle in the year 1825.He gave a complete and accurate description of the symptoms and the reasons of the disorder. Later in 1897, an experiment conducted by Richard von Krafft-Ebbing established the relationship between general paresis and syphilis. They conducted it involving the inoculation of paretic patients with matter from syphilis score. None of the patients show any secondary symptoms of syphilis and was assumed that that they were previously infected.

In 1906, august von Wassermann devised a blood test for the syphilis patients it made it easy to detect the bacteria in the individual’s blood stream. Finally in 1917, Julius von Wagner-Jauregg introduced the malarial fever treatment for the treatment of syphilis and paresis as he knew that high fever associated with malaria killed off the bacteria. He tested this on 9 patients and among them saw improvement in three and recovery in the other three patients.

Today we have the penicillin as an effective and simpler treatment for the syphilis.

Brain Pathology as a casual factor

This period saw the emergence of the modern experimental science in the 18^th century. Scientists began to focus on the diseased body organ as the cause of the physical aliment. The next was to assume that mental disorder was an illness based on pathology of an organ-the brain.

In 1757 albrecht von Haller in his book emphasized the importance of the brain in psychic functions and advocate for the postmortem dissection to the study of the brain.  However the first systematic representation of the brain was made by Wilhelm Griesinger and stated in his book that all mental disorders could be explained in terms of brain pathology. Alois Alzheimer and other investigators established the brain pathology in cerebral arteriosclerosis and in the senile mental disorder. Certain types of mental retardation and other mental illnesses were discovered.

The organic bases of mental disorder addressed the ‘how’ behind causation but not the ‘why’. For example although we know what causes certain ‘persenile’ mental disorder- brain pathology, we don’t know why some individuals are afflicted and others are not.