The Madness Pill: One Doctor’s Quest to Understand Schizophrenia by Justin Garson

TL;DR: A fascinating history of the study of schizophrenia and the development of medication to aid it.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much!

Plot: This one follows not just the development of medication but how drugs such as LSD assisted in these studies which I wasn’t expecting and loved!
Structure: This flowed so well. I flew through this.
Learning/Readability: Very beginner friendly to this topic. I had very little to structure my knowledge on and this was a great intro.

Summary:

A rollicking history of the life and work of an unheralded genius: Dr. Solomon Snyder, whose experiments with mind-altering drugs helped change the way we think about the causes and treatments of schizophrenia.

In the 1950s, the field of psychiatry had nothing to show for itself. While polio was being cured, antibiotics were being discovered, and cancer research was developing, the mental health world had no wins. Asylums were full and nobody had figured out how to fix insanity—specifically schizophrenia, the severest mental illness. Scientists became convinced that if they could engineer a pill to create madness, then they could cure it.

Centered around Solomon Snyder, the psychiatrist who ultimately did identify the madness pill, and the community of doctors and researchers he worked with, THE MADNESS PILL recounts the drug-fueled quest to cure schizophrenia. A wunderkind who started medical school at 19, Snyder worked steadily for decades to replicate the illness, ultimately finding in 1970 that amphetamines could trigger a schizophrenia-like state by flooding the brain with dopamine. Five years later, he went on to discover the dopamine receptor and proved that antipsychotic drugs work by disabling dopamine neurons. Snyder’s dopamine hypothesis inspired a generation of researchers to part ways with psychoanalysis and look for the biological basis of schizophrenia and other mental disorders.

Using first-hand research and interviews, THE MADNESS PILL is at once a raucous history and insightful portrait of a remarkable scientist who turned psychiatry into a respected science by transforming how mental illness is treated.

Thoughts:

Schizophrenia is one of those things I’ve heard of but I don’t know a lot about. Recently our family was impacted by it and now I am trying to find out more about it. The Madness Pill was a great little introduction, and I enjoyed this one a lot.

We start by learning about the most common types of schizophrenia, our author’s father dealt with the condition so he speaks from a place of some experience. Then the conversation moves to mind altering drugs and how these work. By connecting the two topics, schizophrenia and LSD and the like, the author shows us how Solomon Snyder went on to find out everything he did about it.

It’s a fascinating story, and the writing and readability was fantastic. I love nonfiction, I really do, but sometimes I find myself dozing off as I read. I never once had that problem here. I was constantly flipping (digitally) that page, excited to see what was next. I really enjoyed it, and really recommend it for anyone interested in the topic!