For much of the 20th century, those suffering from major mental illnesses were locked up in institutions that deliberately isolated them from society. Their pain and suffering were immense. As wards of the state, they were an enormous burden on the public purse. The pressures on psychiatrists to do something about mental conditions they understood poorly, if at all, were thus correspondingly great, and the restraints on some professionals’ zeal for therapeutic experimentation largely absent. Hence the host of desperate remedies...

Source: Wall Street Journal March 18, 2018 18:22 UTC