The Madness Pill: One Doctor's Quest to Understand Schizophrenia by Justin GarsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Solomon Snyder, or Sol, was on a quest to find a cure of schizophrenia. In order to do that he thought he needed a drug to mimic what the illness does. So he searched in psychedelics for a while, but it wasn't quite right. When speed came about and psychosis from too much speed, well, this drug was closer.
I liked the succinct way the history of psychiatry was explained. Basically two types of approach to mental health, the environmental factors which talk therapy helps; and the biological approach, which is solved with medication. The later helped move the field into a more acceptable scientific field. This book covers many of the medications that were developed.
The book was divided into the two parts: psychedelics then speed, providing a short history and some of the people that were involved in the development. The book did not solely focus on one doctor, Sol, as there was a cadre of people working in this field, but it did keep coming back to Sol’s work. The organizational method of the book made sense, but it also meant that the timeline wasn’t completely linear.
The tail end of the book became a whirlwind of different drugs all with similar sounding names. It was hard to keep that all straight, but otherwise this was a fascinating and informative book.
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