It is equally dangerous at either extreme — to have either an expanding concept of mental disorder that eliminates normal or to have an expanding concept of normal that eliminates mental disorder.― Allen Frances, MD
Psychiatry is a relatively new medical specialty, having been included with other medical specialties in the mid-19th Century. But it was primarily limited to psychiatric hospitals.
As was true of much of medicine at the time, treatment was rudimentary, often harsh, and generally ineffective. Psychiatrists did not treat outpatients, i.e., anyone who functioned even minimally in everyday society. Instead, neurologists treated “nervous” conditions, named for their presumed origin in disordered nerves.
