Roy Porter (1946-2002)

Obituary: Roy Sydney Porter (1946-2002).

Roy Porter

The Patient’s Turn Roy Porter and Psychiatry’s Tales, Thirty Years on

Waking up in a mental hospital isn’t something you plan for. It’s not what I see that astonishes me— I’ve sat through enough loony bin films to have some idea what to expect—but who I am. There have been moments in recent months when I have hardly recognized the desolate woman inhabiting my body and brain; but sooner or later the familiar self would always reappear, sporting her labels—historia...

Roy Porter Student Essay Prize WinnerPsychiatry Limited: Hyperactivity and the Evolution of American Psychiatry, 1957–1980

Hyperactivity is the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorder in north America. Most physicians believe that the disorder is a neurological dysfunction which is best treated with stimulants, such as ritalin. Accounts of the history of hyperactivity written by physicians, psychologists and even historians suggest that the disorder was always conceived as such. This paper argues tha...

The Interdependence of Sequential Senate Elections: Evidence from 1946-2002

Among U.S. federal elections, Senate elections are unique in that each state is a two-member district where representatives are elected sequentially to overlapping terms. Models of the sequential nature of Senate elections have been proposed suggesting that the outcome of the election for one of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats affects the contest for the other. More specifically, these models...