Historical comments on ethics in psychiatry : Challenges in the 19th century

Abstract

With the emergence of an early psychiatry around 1800, anumber of questions arose on dealing with agroup of persons whose "alien", irritating and disruptive behavior was considered to be aphenomenon of being sick. In the context of the growing importance of human rights, the term humanitarianism attained ahigh relevance as the reference for early psychiatrists. Based on historical sources it is shown that despite amultitude of psychiatric beliefs on humanitarianism the established psychiatric practice was dominated by patriarchal order regimes up to the first decade of the twentieth century, later superimposed by the challenges of somatophysiological and experimental research as well as perceptions of biological racism. The associated new ethical questions were partially addressed within psychiatry but did not prevent an increase in the assessment of the mentally ill as "inferior".