2006/05/18 by Richard Noll · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #History of Science and Medicine #Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies #Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices
paper · doi:10.1177/0957154x06059456
openalex publication_date 2006/05/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
After his 17-year-old son suddenly developed a chronic psychotic illness in 1905, Bayard Taylor Holmes (1852-1924), a Chicago physician and surgeon with no psychiatric training, conducted both library and laboratory research on dementia praecox, as described in Part 1 of this two-part study. By late 1915 he believed he had found support for a focal infection theory of its aetiology--an ergot-like toxaemia caused by faecal stasis in the caecum. Holmes was also the editor of what is believed to be the first medical journal named after a psychiatric disorder: Dementia Praecox Studies. Part 2 will describe Holmes' adoption of a rational therapy (using it first on his son, who died), and his founding of a Psychiatric Research Laboratory.