Infected with Insanity: Could Microbes Cause Mental Illness? ~ Scientific American Mind

[mzmolly]

Key Concepts ~ Bugs and the Brain

* Mental illnesses once thought to be the result of neurological or psychological defects may be caused by viral or microbial infections.

* The strongest evidence links schizophrenia to prenatal influenza infection; pregnant women who become ill with the flu are more likely to give birth to children who will develop schizophrenia.

* The body’s immune reaction, rather than the infections themselves, may be to blame for the resulting brain damage and psychiatric symptoms.

* Understanding the relation between infections and psychiatric disorders may someday allow us to prevent mental illness using drugs or vaccines.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=infected-with-insanity">SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM

"In 1896 Scientific American published an editorial entitled “Is Insanity Due to a Microbe?” The question seemed logical, given that microbes were starting to be implicated in other diseases. In the editorial, two doctors described how they had injected cerebrospinal fluid of mentally ill patients into rabbits, which later got sick. The doctors concluded that “certain forms of insanity” could be caused by infectious agents, “similar to typhoid, diphtheria and others.” But when Freudian psychoanalysis became popular in the 1930s, the idea was more or less put to rest. Then, in the 1950s, the discovery of DNA as hereditary material sparked a rising interest in genetics as a cause of illness, including mental disorders. Several papers reported a clear hereditary component to diseases such as schizophrenia, but genes were obviously not the whole story—as a number of studies have found, the identical twin of someone with schizophrenia has only about a one-in-two chance of developing schizophrenia himself. Certain environmental influences therefore probably interact with genes to trigger mental illness in a person with a genetic predisposition. Scientists began investigating everything from diet and lifestyle to parental nurturing and geographical location. In 1973 E. Fuller Torrey, now a research psychiatrist at the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Chevy Chase, Md., published an article in the British journal Lancet that revived an idea that had been set aside for decades—could microbial infection cause mental illness?"

See Infected With Insanity on page 40 here ----> https://myportal.bsd405.org/personal/suttonp/seniorenglish/Unit%203%20%20The%20Bluest%20Eye/Buried%20Prejudice.pdf">SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND APRIL/MAY 2008 for more information on this fascinating subject.

[nebenaube]

1. Great to know...

Can we please now reject the bad science that attempted to link pot to schizophrenia?

[left is right]

2. according to some experts the Salem witch hysteria/trials may have been triggered by

a certain rye mold. Of course, others point out that the “republicans” of their day found a way to seize the witches’ property for themselves. It has been reported that more than one official became wealthy through this stolen property.

[mzmolly]

3. I've heard that

as well. Here's a good article on the subject you raise. http://www.damninteresting.com/bad-rye-and-the-salem-witches

[Chemisse]

4. Really interesting!

I must say though, I sure am glad I am done having babies. Yet another thing to be paranoid about.

[mzmolly]

5. The good news

is that antibiotics an other interventions can be effective in some cases. Hopefully, renewed interest will bring about better answers. :hi:

[flyarm]

6. I found this interesting...

http://coverthistory.blogspot.com/

French Government Queries USA re 1950’s Secret LSD Experiment


A major diplomatic and political scandal is erupting that could have significant import for French-American relations. It involves new research into the mysterious outbreak of “mass insanity” in a village in southern France that affected some 500 people and resulted in five deaths.

According to reliable US sources, the US State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research has been given a confidential inquiry from the office of Erard Corbin de Mangoux, head of the French intelligence agency DSGE (Directorate General for External Security).i According to the report the inquiry regards a recently-published account of U.S. government complicity in a mysterious 1951 incident of mass insanity in France in the village of Pont-Saint-Esprit in southern France.


How much of it could be true ..I don't know..

[PADemD]

7. Is that the same town in John Fuller's book,

"The Day of Saint Anthony's Fire?"

[flyarm]

8. I believe so. eom