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    Unavailable
    Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness
    Unavailable
    Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness
    Unavailable
    Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness
    Audiobook9 hours

    Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness

    Written by Harriet A. Washington

    Narrated by Robert Petkoff

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "Fascinating...A superb book."--Robert Sapolsky, Stanford professor of neuroscience and neurosurgery and author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers

    What causes mental illness? We've long blamed stress, trauma, and brain-chemistry imbalances. But a new theory is quietly achieving critical mass. In INFECTIOUS MADNESS, award-winning science writer Harriet Washington reveals that schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Alzheimer's, and anorexia also may be caused by bacteria, parasites, or viruses. Weaving together cutting-edge research and case studies, INFECTIOUS MADNESS shows how strep throat can trigger rapid-onset OCD in a formerly healthy teen and how contact with cat litter elevates the risk of schizophrenia. Featuring a new afterword by the author, and rich in science, medical mysteries, cultural nuance, and evidence-based recommendations, INFECTIOUS MADNESS pulls back the curtain on a new paradigm with profound implications for us all.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateOct 6, 2015
    ISBN9781478979616
    Unavailable
    Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness
    Author

    Harriet A. Washington

    Harriet A. Washington is the author of Medical Apartheid, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN Oakland Award, and the American Library Association Black Caucus Nonfiction Award. She has been a research fellow in medical ethics at Harvard Medical School, a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University, and the receipient of a John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. She lectures in bioethics at Columbia University and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Her books also include A Terrible Thing to Waste and Infectious Madness.

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    Reviews for Infectious Madness

    3.5/5

    15 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 3/5
      I listened to this book and I think it could've been stronger. She spent a lot of time protesting that people don't believe in infectious madness and not enough time on the studies and stories that would convince.
    • 4/5
      The idea: some mental and emotional "illnesses" are not diseases of the of the mind but are actually signs or symptoms of a biological disease or its aftermath. This was such an interesting theory on the spread, contraction and display of mental and emotional illnesses. The first three-quarters of the book was very plausible to me, someone who does not work in the medical field. The last bit of the book stretched the theory too far for my imagination.
    • 4/5
      This is a heavy book. I was attracted by the title and thought it might be easy reading. Well it was not. It turns out this book was part of the author's Master's thesis. It was, therefore, a scholarly work. I learned a lot from this book and in particular a lot about the mind body connection. Would I recommend this book? If you are fascinated by medicine and treatment methodology this book is for you. Otherwise? Hmm...
    • 4/5
      Fascinating read - complex and at times confusing to the layman but it is much more accessible than an academic scientific journal article. We live in an environment of microbes. The author delves into the history germ theory in modern medicine and more specifically looks at the effects of pathogens and immune responses on mental health. Do we catch schizophrenia, depression, autism, Alzheimers, etc. from bacteria, parasites or viruses? Until 1994 doctors believed that ulcers came from stress. Turns out H.pilori was the culprit.