By Barry Turner

A List of those who should have been givenPsychopharmaceutical treatment as children.

The following artists, scientists and philosophers and statesmen all
are believed to have had what would now be described as personality
disorders or suffered from depression. The personalities of these people
have provided a momentous contribution to humanity.

Ludwig van Beethoven

It is well documented that Beethoven was an irascible character prone to
fits of severe depression and severe mood swings. Some of his finest music,
indeed some of the finest music the world has ever heard was created during
those periods of "melancholia" which we would now treat with mind numbing
anti depressives and SSRI's. How much more moving would have been the
Pastoral Symphony or the 'Ode to Joy' had Beethoven had the benefits of
Prozac or Paxil?

Albert Einstein

Einstein's family were very concerned about the time it took Albert to learn
to talk. Having learned he would practice entire sentences before starting
to speak. When he attended elementary school his headmaster put in his
reports that he would never amount to anything. Later in his schooling he
became both introspective and defiant of authority. Today Einstein's
parents would be able to whip him off to a doctor to be diagnosed with ADHD
and comorbid Oppositional Defiance Disorder and prescribed Ritalin. What a
wonderful effect that would have had on the General Theory of Relativity

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau had no formal education and was brought up by relatives after his
mother had died giving birth and his father had deserted him. He had an
unruly life in which he lived with a maidservant who bore him five children
all of which he consigned to the foundling hospital. Rousseau argued that
societies institutions had corrupted man and pressed for more enlightened
education. He argued against swaddling infants and for the transformation
of child rearing, children were to be breast-fed and allowed loose clothes
to enjoy freedom of movement and closeness to nature. He fervently argued
that a child should be treated as a child and not as an inadequate adult.
The child had the potential to develop unlimited talent in this way.
Rousseau died insane and throughout his life suffered from what would now be
described as bipolar depression. How much more of a contribution to the
Eighteenth Century Enlightenment would he have been able to make if he had
been given lithium and ECT?

(Swaddling was the practice of tightly binding an infant in clothing
designed to restrict movement and stimulation, to keep the child quiet. We
have a more scientific approach to this today giving children powerful and
addictive drugs to keep them in a similar condition.)

Winston Churchill

Churchill was perhaps one of the greatest soldier statesmen of the twentieth
century and in 1940 stood defiant of the greatest war machine and most evil
political system the world had ever seen. His defiance had been a constant
trait during his life and had got him into a great deal of trouble with
authority. Churchill also suffered from alcoholism and bouts of severe
depression which he referred to as his 'Black dog'. Had Churchill had this
condition treated with Antabuse, Tricyclic anti depressives and Electro
Convulsive Therapy he might have thought it more sensible to have
surrendered to Hitler instead of all that trouble he put people to fighting
the Second World War. We would all have the benefits of living in world
where Eugenics was practiced even more widely than it is now.

Vincent van Gogh

One of the greatest painters of the nineteenth century Vincent van Gogh
suffered from terrible depression throughout his life and although
frequently admitted to the psychiatric hospital never had the benefits of
prefrontal lobotomy, ECT or antidepressive drugs. We will never no how
much more beautiful Vincent's paintings would have been if he had been
afflicted with tardive dyskenesia or ataxia.

Isaac Newton

Like Einstein Newton had a difficult childhood and grew up a strange,
irritable and jealous man who never married and was obsessed in seeking
immortality (which incidentally thorough his work he achieved) The
psychologist F E Manuel suggested that his character had a Freudian type
explanation based on the fact that his mother had left him while he was very
young and that he had been left to be brought up by his grandmother. His
father had died before he was born. Newton was certainly a candidate for
'child psychiatrists' to have had a go at. Luckily for him (and modern
physics) the idea had not then been invented. What would our world look
like bereft of the calculus, astronomy and the fundamental building blocks
of all modern physical science had Newton been drugged senseless like many
of today's children are being?

The moral of the story is quite clear. If we want to live in a society that
is no longer capable of giving rise to philosophers, musicians scientists
and leaders just keep up the drugging, psychosurgery ECT, etc. There will be
quieter schoolrooms, maybe even less crime as some would suggest. The cost
will be less innovation less emotion less stimulation and a flat sterile
world of bland conformity, uniform depression in the true sense of the word
and eventually an end to any concept of humanity as we still know it.




Barry Turner resides in the United Kingdom. Involved in academic research into the law
and psychiatry for nearly ten years now and has published papers on
psychiatry, human rights and law on subjects such as Personality Disorder,
ADHD and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Lecturer in a University Biological Sciences Department who teaches law to forensic science students.