Comment on Thomas Ban’s History of Psychiatry Capsule Seventeen (Adrenochrome hypothesis of schizophrenia and treatment with nicotinic acid)

By John Court 

I am intrigued by Tom Ban’s opening statement in Capsule 17, “The hypothesis, that schizophrenia is the outcome of stress-induced anxiety …” and  wonder whether that syndrome or some other cause of an onset of stress-induced anxiety may have been the scientific (if such existed) explanation for the hypothesis of  “schizophrenogenic mothers,” ca.1950s-70s. 

One of my grad school profs at University of Toronto, sociologist Norman Bell (affiliated with the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry), was an advocate of that subsequently disputed idea – now just an historic artifact.

John Court

November 13 2014