Could Marcus Aurelius be the missing link in the insanity defence? - psychiatry in history.

Witnessing insanity: madness and mad-doctors in the English court

In his Trial by medicine (1981) Roger Smith gave a magisterial account of the history of forensic psychiatry in the late-nineteenth century, mainly focusing on insanity pleas in the murder trials that took place after the McNaughton Rules of 1843. Smith's basic picture is that of a titanic battle of ideas between law and psychiatry, between the two incommensurable concepts about human agency. W...

Does the insanity defence lead to an abuse of human rights?

The American Journal of Psychiatry

L ong before there was psychiatry, there was the insanity defense. The idea that the insane should not be punished for otherwise criminal acts began to develop in the twelfth century as part of the more general idea that criminal punishment should be imposed only on persons who were morally blameworthy. In the thirteenth century, Bracton, the first medieval jurist to deal with the subject of in...

Papaya Dieback in Malaysia: A StepTowards A New Insight of Disease Resistance

A recently published article describing the draft genome of Erwiniamallotivora BT-Mardi (1), the causal pathogen of papaya dieback infection in Peninsular Malaysia, hassignificant potential to overcome and reduce the effect of this vulnerable crop (2). The authors found that the draft genome sequenceis approximately 4824 kbp and the G+C content of the genomewas 52-54%, which is very similarto t...

Fiscal Space Assessment: A Missing Link in Financing Management of Iran’s Health System

Fiscal Space Assessment: A Missing Link in Financing Management of Iran’s Health System Nader Jahanmehr1,2, Soheila Damiri3*, Reza Goudarzi4, Zhaleh Abdi5 1 School of Management and Medical Education, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 3 Department of...