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BOOK REVIEW
"The Madness Of Adam And Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity" by David Horrobin
reviewed by Hywel Davies
This book is an intelligent and
courageous text that links mental "illness" and
creativity in a radical, articulate and informed manner. Horrobin
states that "schizophrenia" has helped the evolutionary
ascent of humankind from ape to man in the past 100,000 years.
Dr. Horrobin lives in Scotland and is the current President of
the Schizophrenia Association of Great Britain (SAGB). A graduate
of Balliol College, Oxford, he obtained the best medical degree
of his year. He added a clinical medical degree and a doctorate
in neuroscience. He was a Fellow of Magdalen College, where he
taught medicine. His academic career took him to St. Mary's
Hospital in London, to Nairobi where he helped to found the new
medical school, to Newcastle and to Montreal. In 1970 Dr.
Horrobin became an Adviser to SAGB. Thus began a lifetime of
interest in "schizophrenia" which, combined with a
fascination for Africa and human origins, led to the generation
of concepts discussed in this innovative text.
Horrobin states that about 100,000 years ago we became human. We
became human because some of us are different. A species of
clever ape, which had evolved slowly over a period of three
million years, abruptly became something different. Technical,
spiritual, religious, artistic, musical, political, military and
criminal abilities emerged and exploded. Ape became Human.
We are human because some of us are "schizophrenic". In
other words, some of us have an "abnormal" access to an
altered state of consciousness which both enchants and petrifies
the person experiencing it. "A touch of schizophrenia"
is associated with exceptional creative skills, both good and
evil. In the footsteps of that extraordinary creativity (a
creativity that defines us and separates us from our nearest
primate relatives), the human world of art, literature, music,
sculpture and faith moves shockingly but brilliantly onward.
According to Horrobin, the early cave painters of Spain and
France (30,000 years ago), Sir Isaac Newton, James Joyce, Albert
Einstein and Kafka all possessed "a touch of schizophrenia".
Out of their crippled "lunacy" a new kind of
evolutionary ascent of humankind was born. -
There appears to be a link between "schizophrenia" and
genius. For Horrobin, it is no coincidence that Albert Einstein
had a son labelled by psychiatry as "schizophrenic", as
was James Joyce's daughter and Carl Jung's mother.
At times, unfortunately, people with schizophrenia can be
verbally and/or physically violent. However, nutritional
treatment can significantly reduce violence amongst prisoners in
prisons (page 225 of the book). And multivitamin capsules
containing a mixture of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids from
evening primrose oil and fish oil can help the severely "mentally
ill", (pages 216 to 218).
This book deserves to be read.
The book was published by Bantam Press in 2001, 275pp, ISBN 0593
046498, £18.99.
Hywel Davies is Chair of Hearing Voices Network, Cymru