Customer Reviews

Moonlight, Magnolias, and Madness: Insanity in South Carolina from the Colonial Period to the Progressive Era

I highly recommend Madness for both the layperson and the scholar. Dr. McCandless has put together a history of insanity in South Carolina that reads more like a fascinating story than a "history book." His research has uncovered a wealth of incredible tales: we not only read about deplorable conditions, and sorry patients, but we feel the frustration of the doctors trying to "treat" the insane with little money and almost no guidance. Place the big-city homeless of today back in time to the South Carolina of the years before the Civil War. Picture the bag lady roaming the woods. Picture the doctor trying to cure her with bleeding and chains. Dr. McCandless paints a picture of horror but with a brush of compassion. He lets his reader feel for both the doctor as well as the patient. He opens doors the reader never even knew existed. A wonderful piece of research.

For more on Madness go to

http://ally.ios.com/~advpres9/madness.html

I highly recommend Madness for both the layperson and the scholar. Dr. McCandless has put together a history of insanity in South Carolina that reads more like a fascinating story than a "history book." His research has uncovered a wealth of incredible tales: we not only read about deplorable conditions, and sorry patients, but we feel the frustration of the doctors trying to "treat" the insane with little money and almost no guidance. Place the big-city homeless of today back in time to the South Carolina of the years before the Civil War. Picture the bag lady roaming the woods. Picture the doctor trying to cure her with bleeding and chains. Dr. McCandless paints a picture of horror but with a brush of compassion. He lets his reader feel for both the doctor as well as the patient. He opens doors the reader never even knew existed. A wonderful read.

For more on Madness go to

http://ally.ios.com/~advpres9/madness.html