Overview

"A MAN AGAINST INSANITY describes the remarkable life and career of Dr. John (Jack) Ferguson, a man who began his medical career late in life with the simple goal of becoming a simple country doctor. But Dr. Ferguson was anything but a simple man, and this book provides an insightful description of a tumultuous early life that led to a relentless pursuit of goals motivated by an insatiable need for approval. Despite repeated financial set- backs, a divorce, a heart attack, a barbiturate addiction and several psychiatric hospitalizations, Ferguson persevered and eventually graduated medical school 20 years after he first enrolled. He then realized his dream when he was hired as the town doctor in a small, rural community. The dream didn't last: after only one year, he abruptly abandoned his position and collapsed into a fog of psychosis with grandiose delusions, delusions that led to an attempt to poison his wife and kill himself. Over the next 13 months, Ferguson would be hospitalized three times as a barbiturate psychotic, finally emerging as a ""new man."" Humbled and compassionate, Fer- guson credited supportive psychotherapy and the warmth of the hospital attendants with helping him find a new direction for life-to serve psychiatric patients."

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9781961302020

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Reviews

"A MAN AGAINST INSANITY is a must-read for all students in the helping professions. Author DeKruif provides a fasci- nating overview of the scientific method and the state of psy- chiatric care from the early to mid-20th century, beginning with William Lorenz's 1916 proclamation that ""insanity is chemical."" Throughout the book, DeKruif charts the slow but steady course of scientific discovery, from the brief glimmers of normality triggered by sodium cyanide to the profoundly calming effects of the powdered root from India, Rauwolfia serpentina, the forerunner of the tranquillizer, Chlorpromazine. A Man Against Insanity is an intriguing story about scien- tific discovery and the Northern Michigan physician who prevailed over personal adversity to lead in the development of modern psychopharmacology. -Michael J. Sullivan LMSW Family Psychotherapist"

Author Information

"De Kruif began his vocation at the University of Michigan, obtaining a PhD. in microbiology. After graduation, he joined the military service, first as a private on the Pancho Villa Expedition in Mexico, and then as an officer in the Sanitary Corps during World War I, where he had occasion to meet many leading French scientists of the day.In 1925, de Kruif assisted Sinclair Lewis in the research for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the state of medicine in the U.S. during the 1920s, Arrowsmith, for which he received 25 percent of royalties. The very next year de Kruif published his own book, Microbe Hunters, which became a bestseller and still remains on recommended reading lists for phycicians and scientists.De Kruif supported the belief that healthcare should be made available to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay for treatments and services -something Detroit Free Press science writer Boyce Rensberger pointed out was ""tantamount to treason among members of the medical community"" in the 1950s, particularly the American Medical Association, which considered de Kruif a communist. In the words of Rensberger, de Kruif ""fought an economic system that at the time withheld modern medicine's benefit for all but the wealthy."""

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