Did Mary Lincoln need committal?

[Houmes]

(06-16-2013 07:27 AM)JMadonna Wrote:  "Insanity" is a legal term not a medical one. Was she a threat to herself or others? Robert thought she was a threat to herself and the court agreed.
Was this the best course of action for her medically? Probably not, but those were the choices at the time.
Luckily she didn't live in the 1950's when she probably would have undergone electro-shock therapy.

I agree. Psychiatry was a primitive art (much theory but little science was involved back then in this medical specialty) in Mary Lincoln's time. Consider Lewis Powell. He was evaluated by several doctors to determine his sanity and ability to stand trial--and ironically, the ones acknowledged to be the experts were called "mad doctors."

The 1950's were really the start of modern psychiatry, with drugs beginning to be used which we consider ghastly today. I have a wonderful advertisement from a medical journal of that era claiming John Wilkes Booth wouldn't have assassinated Lincoln if he had been treated with thorazine, which has a laundry list of side effects, including turning you into a zombie.

I knew a psychiatrist practicing then, and he used to recall rows of patients in bed, like an assembly line, waiting for either electroshock therapy (physicians like to use the more innocuous term "electroconvulsive therapy") or insulin shock therapy, where you're placed in an insulin coma. Works for some, not for others. One major problem with either is memory loss, which can make a bad case of depression even worse. Exhibit A: famous author Ernest Hemingway. Some speculate the electroshock therapy he received worsened his problem, and he committed suicide when he felt unable to write.