The Antidepressant Era (Paperback)

~ David Healy (Author) "Antidepressants were introduced along with the first antibiotics, the first antihypertensives, and a range of other drugs in a therapeutic revolution that took place in..." (more)
Key Phrases: antidepressant story, antidepressant principles, amine hypotheses, United States, New York, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

David Healey's book focuses on the discovery and development of antidepressants and provides a fascinating insight into the history of this field. He skillfully interweaves the account of the roles played by the key scientists and clinicians with the powerful influence of pharmaceutical companies...The antidepressant era represents one of the seminal events in the social and cultural history of the latter half of the twentieth century. This book is written in an individual and engaging style and the author reveals a deep knowledge of his subject; he has his own firm views but does not force them upon the reader. I found it a compelling read and hope that it will reach a wide audience.
--Leslie Iversen (Nature )

As a history, it is brilliant and brilliantly written, tracing the introduction of antidepressants, which, along with the first antibiotics and antihypertensives, created a therapeutic revolution just after World War II. These developments brought health to the center of global politics and created the possibility of a common language that crossed ethnic, race, and class barriers. The paths traced begin in antiquity. Healy discusses concepts of disease and illness beginning with Hippocrates; the isolation of the tubercle bacillus by Robert Koch; the beginning of the pharmaceutical companies; (In 1804, there were 90 patent medicines listed. By 1857, the list had grown to 1,500); the discovery of the power of marketing with aspirin; the 1951 bill which gave the FDA power to decide which medicines should be made available by prescription; and the 1962 Kefauver-Harris amendment which charged the FDA with establishing the efficacy of over-the-counter as well as prescription drugs. The role of NIMH in testing the new psychotropic drugs, the discovery and testing of the antidepressants and the science developed to facilitate testing are well described. Since many of the scientists who participated in the antidepressant revolution were still around for interviewing, the material is vivid and personal.
--Myrna M. Weissman (New England Journal of Medicine )

In the past five years [David Healy] has emerged as the leading international authority on the history of psychopharmacology...Healy's modest endnotes reveal that he has participated in numerous key events, and that he knows personally many of the main actors in the story...The body of Healy's book is a clear, detailed and highly informative reconstruction of the major lines of clinical and laboratory research that have produced modern psychiatric pharmacotherapy...Healy is well-informed...Without slighting the science, he manages to describe [major developments] in an admirably readable narrative...The best remedies of all, however, may be a historically informed medical profession and a biomedically enlightened public. David Healy's impressive and fascinating book is a means to these ends.
--Mark S. Micale (Times Literary Supplement )

David Healy is one of the most remarkable figures in contemporary psychiatry. He combines the skills of an historian with a training in laboratory psychopharmacology, a research interest in psychopathology, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the psychotherapies. Throughout the past decade he has published books and papers on subjects as diverse as phenomenology, nosology, hysteria, and psychopharmacology...Healy's trilogy [The Psychopharmacologists,The Psychopharmacologists II, and The Antidepressant Era] is a major achievement: its importance goes beyond psychiatry and psychopharmacology to embrace the whole of medicine. These books represent a quantum leap in understanding the processes that shape therapeutic innovation in clinical practice. Work of this revolutionary scope comes along infrequently--perhaps once in a decade.
--Bruce G.Charlton (Journal of Medicine of the Royal Society )

The story Healy brilliantly recounts is one of increasing regulation of psychopharmaceuticals by governments...Healy's proposal will strike some as unscientific and others as humane, for he calls for the deregulation of psychoactive drugs, thereby putting control of mental illness back in the people's hands and forcing physicians to refocus their efforts on cultivating an empathic clinical encounter. In doing so, as Healy rightly claims, patients are better served and mental illness is better understood.
--Robert A. Crouch (Religious Studies Reviews )

Well-written and thoroughly researched, the book provides an excellent overview of the history of psychotropic medicine from Hippocrates to the age of Prozac, using depression as a paradigm of the ways in which the popularity of such drugs may have been influenced more by pharmaceutical marketing than by medical necessity.
--Catherine Calloway (Journal of American Culture )

Product Description

When we stop at the pharmacy to pick up our Prozac, are we simply buying a drug? Or are we buying into a disease as well? The first complete account of the phenomenon of antidepressants, this authoritative, highly readable book relates how depression, a disease only recently deemed too rare to merit study, has become one of the most common disorders of our day-and a booming business to boot.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (November 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674039580
• ISBN-13: 978-0674039582
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #272,100 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of the Antidepressant Era by David Healy, May 13, 2000

By	D.R.Sharples & Pam Armstrong/ Bactolife.u... (uk) - See all my reviews

Having worked for so long with the less desirable effects of mind altering medication it is extremely useful to read a book which so clearly presents, alongside much of the history of medicine and through to the present day day and the Prozac era. David Healy presents many views very similiar to my own with great great clarity and honesty. Indeed, this a book I would love to have written if I had his knowledge and word power. David Healy depth of research is awe inspiring and he has the ability to put an idea in such a way that is capivates much of the reader. The whole concept of marketing depression as a disease and then designing drugs to fit is one that few on us have considered. The idea of the designed drug rather than the discovered drug is also an useful comparsion. This book is certainly different in its approach and intregity and the knowledge it contains is very needed. I hope it is widely read.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Packed with information, but difficult to read, June 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Antidepressant Era (Hardcover)

David Healy obviously knows a lot about antidepressants (and about psychopharmacology in general). However, he apparently doesn't know a lot about using clear, straightforward, unpretentious language.

This book badly needs an editor. Healy's writing is far more difficult and opaque than it needs to be.

Nevertheless, I'm giving the book four stars because of the excellent content.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ignorance may be bliss but it does not solve the problem, August 20, 2001

By	Bruce Scott (Southampton, UK) - See all my reviews

Being a researcher of SSRIs and depression from a psychologiacl standpoint I was impressed by the line took by Healy- my own research is begining to show that even when people take SSRIs their self-esteem (which is formed by childhood and environment) is not affected or changed. I agree with Healy that we should take far more account of the fundamnetal social implications of depression within society and treat this as well as the individual- doing this is a far more efective way of tackling depression. However this may not be the case for the drug companies.