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Return to the Archive | BerkshireWorldHistory.com 4 May 2005 Volume 1, Issue 10
Mad Kings"Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!"---The Bastard's Speech, Act II of King John by William Shakespeare
For biographies of mad and other odd rulers, see Joan's Mad Monarchs Series. The Madness of King George, a 1994 film starring Nigel Hawthorne as the king and Helen Mirren as Queen Charlotte, provides some insight into how mental illness was diagnosed and treated in earlier times. (And who doesn't enjoy watching actors like these two?) Running Amok
Inside the Berkshire Encyclopedia: Articles in the Encyclopedia dealing with health and illness include AIDS, Biological Exchanges, and Malaria. For a more general view, try Disease and Nutrition or Disease--Overview, or try Health and Illness, edited by our own David Levinson and published by ABC-CLIO.
Amok is a form of what is now called a culture-bound syndrome. Experts agree that all illness has a cultural or social dimension. There are also behavioral disorders that seem to occur only in certain cultures. Amok is one. Others are koro (fear of genital loss in Malaysia), latah (extreme fright reaction in Southeast Asia), brain fog (student brain fatigue in West Africa), Arctic hysteria (dissociative state in Greenland) and the eating disorders of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in the United States and Western Europe. Not all experts agree that there really are culture-bound disorders. Those who adhere to a biological model of mental illness argue that mental illness is basically the same everywhere, though it can be shaped by cultural factors. Contemporary eating disorders are a good example. They were first described in the West but have since appeared in Asia, as young women adopt western ideas about beauty.
Mad as a Hatter
Check out our World History and HCI gear for 2005!
 Mercury has been associated with another form of mental damage, which you might recognize from Alice in Wonderland. Remember the character of the Mad Hatter? Before using mercury solutions in hatting was outlawed, hatters would often suffer mercury poisoning after years of inhaling fumes. Common symptoms included tremors and shakes, while advanced cases moved on to hallucinations and speech problems. This website from Mercury Technology Services goes into more detail on the phenomenon of the Mad Hatter.
 Coming up to bat: the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport. From ancient Mayan ball courts to high-tech steroid labs, here in a single reference source are the events, issues, and conflicts that keep talk radio buzzing-the background and low-down for fans and students alike. Lots for world history teaching, too!
We hope this look at mental illness provides a refreshing change of pace, and a little perspective on our own culture and its pressures! Berkshire is exploring ways to help teachers both during summer workshops and trainings and during the next school year. We've got a short survey in the works and hope you'll take that opportunity to tell us what we can do to keep your headaches to a minimum. The teaching of world history is a task that requires us to pool ideas and resources in order to provide our students with the intellectual resources and analytical skills they'll need in the years ahead. With warm regards, |
We're always curious about how attitudes change over time and the relationship between personal experience and change in the world at large. Why, we wondered, do Americans suffer so from headaches and depression? Are illnesses a human universal or, in part, determined by time, place, class, and perspective? Here are a few ideas we thought would be of interest to you and your students.
Most of us have heard of the “great man” theory of history. But what about the “madman” theory of history, in which events can be explained by the seemingly irrational acts of kings, queens, sultans, and other monarchs? Although many monarchs may have been “mad,” only a few actually carried that nickname into history: Charles VI “The Mad” of France (1368-1422), Carlos II “The Bewitched” of Spain (1545-1568), “Mad” Mustafa I of the Ottoman Empire (1591-1639), and “Mad King” George III of England (1738-1820). Of these, George III (shown at right and looking quite sane) has drawn the most attention, because he was on the throne when England lost its American colony. It is not clear, however, that his illness played much of a part in the conflict. The application of modern ideas about mental illness to the historical record suggests that most “mad” monarchs had physical illnesses that produced psychological symptoms, suffered from inherited disorders, or had been mistreated in childhood. 
There's considerable debate today about the reason for the rise in cases of autism. One idea is that the mercury that was contained in standard infant vaccines was responsible, but according to this
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