Providentia

The Abe Sada Incident (Part Two)

Continued from Part One

During the eight-session interrogation of Sada Abe, police found her strangely compelling as she talked about killing Kichizo Ishida. Sada was emphatic in saying that "I loved him so much, I wanted him all to myself. But since we were not husband and wife, as long as he lived he could be embraced by other women. I knew that if I killed him no other woman could ever touch him again, so I killed him.....". Asked why cut off his genitals, she replied ""Because I couldn't take his head or body with me. I wanted to take the part of him that brought back to me the most vivid memories." The public was fascinated with the case. While murders due to jealousy were hardly uncommon, the strange story of the geisha-turned-harlot who killed out of love mesmerized Japanese society (and you thought the Lorena Bobbitt case was memorable).

Sada Abe's trial began on November 25th, 1936 and crowds gathered for hours before the courthouse even opened to catch a glimpse of her (she wore a bizarre conical hat when entering and leaving the courtroom to hide her face). Eager reporters relayed as much of her sensational testimony as government censors allowed (even one of the three judges who tried her case later admitted to being sexually aroused by the explicit details). Considering the conservative nature of Japanese society at the time, Sada's testimony (which became a bestseller afterward) was explosive. One leading newspaper described the fascination with the case as "Sada mania" and many of the young women who watched the case were called "Sada fans".

The media furour didn't focus on Sada alone. Goro Omiya had been investigated by the police for his possible involvement in the murder but was finally released. He resigned from his political and academic posts and disappeared from public view. Kichizo Ishida's wife was devastated by her husband's death (although she could hardly have been unaware of his womanizing) but managed to keep the restaurant going. Ironically, the Yoshidaya restaurant flourished thanks to the publicity of the case. Even the inn where the murder had taken place attracted eager customers (many couples specifically asked for the room where Ishida had died).

Any hope for a lengthy trial was squashed when Sada Abe simply pled guilty to the charges against her. Despite her plea, numerous witnesses were called (including Sada's sister) and Ishida's severed genitals were presented as evidence. There was no question of the verdict, only the sentence that she would receive. Sada had been hoping for the death penalty so that she could join Ishida while the prosecution asked for a ten-year sentence. The six-year sentence that she received came as a surprise to everyone in the courtroom. In handing down the sentence, the judge explained his decision by stressing the role that Ishida had played in the events leading up to his death. He also discussed Sada's mental state at the time (despite Sada's objections, her lawyer insisted that she had been insane at the time of the murder). The judge concluded that the sentence would be enough time for Sada to rehabilitate herself in prison and start a new life upon release. Since she never committed another crime, he was probably right.

Sada's time in prison would represent the most stable period in her life. She would later describe the prison staff as "loving and caring people" and actually felt herself part of a community. Despite setbacks (especially on the first anniversary of Ishida's death), she was able to function and even studied Buddhist philosophy while in prison. Due to her being a model prisoner, her sentence was later commuted and she was released on November 10, 1940. Unfortunately, her notoriety kept her in the public eye for the rest of her life.

Even living under an alias, Sada found that public fascination with her case made starting a new life impossible. Since she left prison without any real income, she lived with her sister and brother-in-law for a time but wartime rationing forced her to support herself. Under the name "Yoshii Masako" she went to work as a maid but was fired when her employers learned her true identity. A "serious man" then asked her to become his mistress and she reluctantly accepted. This relationship ended after several years when his family learned who she really was.

Although Sada realized that her name had become "poisonous" and was distressed that the public thought of her as a "sex pervert", this would change over time as postwar attitudes concerning sexuality became more liberalized. Still, there were few occupations that were open to her as a notorious woman living alone and the stigma of her past continued to haunt her. She sued the author of a scandalous book based on supposed interviews with her (this was settled out of court) and even published her own autobiography in 1948. After years of living in semi-anonymity and working in pubs and restaurants, Sada finally managed to drop out of sight. Last seen in 1970, nothing else is known about her life. Occasional later rumours of her committing suicide or entering a convent sprang up but nothing was ever confirmed and there is no known death date.

Despite her disappearance, the fascination with Sada's case ever really ended. Her life has been the subject of non-fiction books, novels, psychoanalytic essays, and movies. The 1976 erotic classic, The Realm of the Senses is probably the best-known of the three films made about Sada's life. The film's explicit sex scenes (and its gruesome ending) caused it to be banned or censored in countries around the world but it introduced viewers to a bizarre case that is still largely unknown outside of Japan. Whether Sada Abe is a feminist icon or a notorious murderer (and she has been described as both), her case represents an important test of the changing sexual mores of Japanese culture. Whatever her final fate, Sada Abe will be remembered.

The Abe Sada Incident (Part One)

On May 18, 1936, Sada Abe strangled her lover, Kichizo Ishida, to death. After laying with the body for several hours, she took a kitchen knife and severed his genitals. Wrapping them in a magazine cover, she used his blood to write Sada, Kichi Futari-kiri ("Sada, Kichi together") on his left thigh and on a bed sheet. She then carved her name on his left arm, got dressed, and walked out of the room in the Tokyo inn where they had been staying. Sada instructed the staff not to disturb Ishida and left the inn. Shortly afterward, she went to see a politically prominent former lover, Goro Amiya, and apologized to him repeatedly. He had no idea what she was talking about but she was well aware that this career was about to be ruined by the adverse publicity due to her involvement with him. She was right.

Born to a well-off Tokyo family in 1905, Sada Abe (or Abe Sada depending on the naming tradition used) was doted on by her mother who encouraged her to be free-spirited and independent. At the age of fifteen, she was raped by an acquaintance. While her parents supported her through the investigation that followed, Sada was never the same afterward.

As she became more uncontrollable, her father sold her to a geisha house in Yokohama although family members would later disagree as to why. While Sada maintained that she was being punished for her promiscuous behaviour, her sister would state that she had been perfectly willing. Becoming an accomplished geisha was a mark of distinction for Japanese women of the time and Sada had often expressed her wish to pursue this lifestyle.

Whatever ideas Sada about the glamorous life of a geisha, the reality was very different. After contracting syphilis from a client, she turned to prostitution and began working in Osaka's brothel district. Working as a licensed prostitute posed more problems than she was prepared to deal with and she eventually drifted towards unlicensed prostitution (with all the usual dangers). After both her parents died, she became even more unrestrained. A raid on the brothel where she was working in 1934 led to her becoming the mistress of a well-connected friend of the brothel owner. A string of other lovers followed as she tried to get out of prostitution entirely. In 1936, Sada became an apprentice in a restaurant in an attempt at starting a new life. This was how she met Kichizo Ishida.

Despite being the owner of the Yoshidaya restaurant where Sada worked, it was really his wife who ran the business. The 42-year old Ishida was a frequent womanizer who was bored with his marriage and it didn't take long from him to notice his free-spirited apprentice. Sada in turn, despite already being involved with Omiya at the time, didn't hesitate when the handsome Ishida approached her (she would later say that "I never met such a sexy man"). Their lovemaking bouts were legendary and often lasted for days. Whatever Ishida's plans, Sada found herself falling in love with him (possibly for the first time in her life). Just being his mistress wasn't enough for her, she wanted to be his wife and the idea of sharing him another woman infuriated her.

Sada grew more despondent as Ishida drew away from her and she began drinking heavily. Inspired by a play that she had seen featuring a geisha threatening a lover with a knife, Sada bought a large kitchen knife and threatened Ishida with it at their next meeting. Ishida was amused by her threats and took her off to an inn in the Ogu red light district for their next lovemaking marathon. What happened next is mainly based on Sada's testimony. After two days of lovemaking, she took the obi off her kimono and began strangling him. He found the erotic asphyxia enjoyable and told he to do it while he was sleeping. On the morning of May 18th, she strangled him to death (whether intentionally or not is open to debate) and would later say that she felt a "sense of clarity" on realizing that he was dead. After cutting off her lover's genitals, she put on his underwear and left the inn at 8:00 am. The mutilated body was found by a maid some time later and the hunt for Sada Abe began.

There was a nationwide panic over the lurid media accounts describing the deranged Sada being at large. Reported sightings came in from all over Japan. Goro Omiya got swept up in the media frenzy and his involvement with Sada thoroughly destroyed his political career. As for Sada herself, she stayed at a nearby inn and reportedly made plans to commit suicide. Acting on a tip, police tracked her down to her hotel room on May 20 and she gave up immediately. Ishida's severed genitals, still wrapped in the magazine cover, were found in her handbag.

News of Sada's capture was reported nationwide and even announced in Japan's National Diet. Given the political upheavals of the time, the bizarre sex scandal made for a welcome diversion and the public ate up every detail of the testimony that she provided during her interrogation.

And the media frenzy was only just beginning...

Continue to Part Two.

A Shocking Discovery (Part Three)

Continue from Part Two

In the last years of his life, Ernest Hemingway became increasingly despondent due to chronic pain, alcoholism, health problems, and his failing literary career. By 1960, he underwent a series of ECT sessions to treat his depression and paranoia (of course the FBI had been watching him ever since he left Cuba so there may have been reasons for the paranoia). While the ECT was meant to control his depression, it actually seemed to make things worse. In addition to his other problems, Hemingway began experiencing serious memory loss as well. Talking about his ECT sessions, he said that "Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient." Following his first suicide attempt in 1961, Hemingway received further ECT treatments before finally succeeding in killing himself on July 2 in that same year. While a clear link between Hemingway's ECT use and his suicide can't be established, his tragic experience has made him a poster child for the anti-ECT movement.

The counterculture movement that took shook psychiatry in the late 1960s and early 1970s was driven by a renewed activism by former psychiatric patients rebelling against the perceived authoritarian culture in psychiatric hospitals. Hemingway, Silvia Plath (who committed suicide in 1963), and other writers who wrote movingly of their experiences with ECT helped shape the popular perception. Combined with the writings of Thomas Szasz, R.D. Laing, Michel Foucault, and Erving Goffmann, psychiatrists came to be seen as increasingly sinister figures who used ECT and other treatments to modify unwanted behaviours rather than treating disease.

Ken Kesey's 1962 book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and its 1975 movie version helped shape public awareness of ECT and it was during that same period that a massive revolution in how psychiatric patients were treated got underway. With newer and better medications came a rapid deinstititutionalization of psychiatric patients Mass closing of psychiatric hospitals and the dumping of patients into communities that were often ill-equipped to handle them made the need for better treatment options all the more acute.

Questions concerning the appropriateness of ECT use and accusations of involuntary treatment spurred the rise of antipsychiatry groups and and patient's rights organizations began to challenge psychiatric hospitals in court. Neurologists also began questioning the potential role of ECT in causing brain damage in patients. John Friedburg published Shock Treatment Is Not Good For Your Brain in 1976 in which he stated that ECT produced amnesia through selective brain damage.

As former patients such as Mark Vonnegut and Leonard Frank came forward with their own negative experiences with ECT and the public awareness of its dangers grew, more and more patients came to refuse it altogether. Anti-psychiatry groups such as the Network Against Psychiatric Assault (founded in 1973), the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry (founded in 1984) and the Church of Scientology began to agitate against ECT use (especially on involuntary patients). ECT became increasingly rare, especially since psychiatrists using it found themselves receiving sharp rises in their professional liability insurance premiums as a result.

Given that not all cases of depression and bipolar disorder responded to medication, ECT continued to have a role in treatment however. My own graduate mentor, Norman Endler, credited ECT with helping him recover from serious bipolar disorder and even wrote a book on his experiences, Holiday of Darkness. Other former psychiatric patients including Kitty Dukakis, Thomas Eagleson, and Andy Behrman have come forward with their own positive experiences although they tend not to be as well-publicized as the negative accounts.

I won't try to do justice to the hundreds of pro- and anti-ECT research studies that have been carried out over the past four decades. Government and non-government organizations including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the American Psychiatric Association have released reports confirming the value of ECT in certain circumstances as well as imposed more stringent guidelines concerning informed consent and training of ECT staff. It was in 1985 when Max Fink, a protege of Lothar Kalinowsky launched the Journal of ECT which remains the primary publication of its type and helped restore some of ECT's lost credibility.

The political debate over ECT use has become increasingly polarized over time with harsh denunciations on both sides. Even a brief Web search can turn up numerous anti-ECT sites that denounce the treatment and its providers. Attempts at a reasoned debate on ECT use have a tendency to degenerate into anti-psychiatry arguments. And there we stand at present.

Ironically, ECT may well be moving into a new direction altogether. The use of deep brain stimulation procedures to treat depression by implanting electrodes to stimulate the subcalossal cingulate region of the brain has been found to relieve treatment-resistant depression with few of the negative side effects associated with ECT or anti-depressant medication. Whether this new form of electrical stimulation will replace its predecessor, only time will tell.

A Shocking Discovery (Part Two)

Continued from Part 1.

If Italy's fascist government played a role in the invention of electroshock therapy (also called electroconvulsive therapy or ECT for short), it may very well have been the Nazis who played a greater role in its spread around the world. Three clinicians who had trained under Ugo Cerletti left Europe to escape Nazi persecution and brought ECT with them.

Lothar Kalinowsky had originally trained in Berlin before fleeing the Nazis and earning his second MD degree in Rome under Cerletti. As the Nazis advanced, Kalinowsky fled to France and then to England and introduced ECT to both countries.  Immigrating to the United States in 1940, he helped launch ECT at the New York State Psychiatric Institute while Renato Amansi (Cerletti-trained refugee number two) did the same at the Columbus Hospital in New York. Victor Gonda (refugee number three) introduced ECT in Chicago at the same time and there continues to be some controversy over who was the original "godparent" of electroconvulsive therapy in the United States.

While asylum psychiatrists were enthusiastic about the potential for the use of ECT, psychoanalysts were far more skeptical. Washington psychoanalyst, Harry Stack Sullivan, was an early critic of ECT and the biological model of mental illness which ECT supported. Despite this resistance, by 1946 when Kalinowsky and Paul Hoch published Shock Treatments, Psychosurgery and Other Somatic Treatments, ECT had become widely used across North America.

While there were warnings as early as 1947 by the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry about the "promiscous and indiscriminate use of" electroshock treatment, psychiatrists were eager for new treatments to deal with the chronic overcrowding in psychiatric hospitals. The end of World War II and its aftermath led to thousands of psychiatric casualties (including returning veterans) and drastic reductions in hospital staff. A 1942 survey of 305 state psychiatric hospitals found that 93 percent of them had adopted some form of ECT (although medical standards varied widely). An estimated 7000 patients were treated within the first two years of ECT;s introduction.

The first machines tended to be "in-house" creations made by local technical staff or hired electricians following directions provided by Cerletti and his assistants. As different designs and innovations began to proliferate, manufacturers offered their products to hospitals and the familiar ECT machine started sporting brand names such as Offner, MedKraft, Rahm, and Lektra. There were active marketing campaigns with ads in psychiatry journals and psychiatrists began favouring some manufacturers and brands over others.

The use of ECT replaced all other forms of somatic treatment (except for the continuing use of lobotomies but that's another story). Patients suffering from any form of psychosis, depression, dementia, personality disorder, psychopathy, or even homosexuality (it was still considered a mental illness at the time) were considered for the new treatment. New organizations sprang up including the Electroshock Research Association in 1944 and the Society for Biological Psychiatry in 1945.

Clinical literature was filled with post-treatment validity studies testing ECT in different psychiatric populations. A typical research study in 1945 reported a 67-70 per cent remission rate for first-episode schizophrenics compared to a 25-30 spontaneous remission rate. Studies of longer-term improvements tended to be far less optimistic though and it was increasingly recognized that ECT was a treatment rather than a cure. ECT even entered the popular culture with a prominent appearance in the 1948 classic film The Snake Pit (based on Mary Jane Ward's semi-autobiographical book). The sight of Olivia de Havilland being subjected to ECT in the movie helped shape popular attitudes of the time.

Despite the eagerness associated with ECT use there was one important stumbling block: nobody knew exactly why it worked. Ugo Cerletti proposed that ECT caused the brain to produce beneficial chemicals which he termed "acro-amines" although his arguments were unconvincing. Other critics suggested that ECT produced selective brain damage due to trauma (and pointed out the short and long-term memory impairments that often resulted from its use) which affected emotional responsiveness. ECT advocates suggested that ECT stimulated neurotransmitter production but experimental studies were (and still are) inconclusive.

With research came more innovations to deal with the serious dangers associated with ECT use. Patients receiving electroshock often developed broken bones due to their thrashing about on the table. Nerve blockers and general anesthetics made ECT less risky although patients still complained of memory loss afterward.

Although he was nominated, Ugo Cerletti died in 1963 without ever receiving his long-cherished Nobel prize in medicine. Given that the only other Nobel prize ever awarded to a psychiatrist was for the invention of the lobotomy, you do have the sense that the Nobel Committee shied away from recognizing another potentially controversial breakthrough. Cerletti was lucky enough to miss the backlash against ECT that would come later but he lived long enough to see a marked decline in ECT use during the 1950s and early 1960s. The availability of antidepressant and antipsychotic medications that were safer and more effective made ECT less popular with therapists and patients.

While ECT still continued to be used for bipolar disorder and depression, things were about to change...

Continue to Part Three.

A Shocking Discovery (Part One)

The 1930s was a turbulent decade for Italian psychiatry due to widespread interest in "physical therapies" for treating asylum inmates. Use of Insulin coma, barbituate narcosis, and lobotomies represented an exciting alternative to the psychoanalytic movement of the time in treating the untreatable. Given the widespread perception that mental patients represented an economic burden on society, Italy's Fascist government (likely inspired by the Erbkrank movement in Nazi Germany), began funding different research projects investigating somatic therapies for mental illness. At the forefront of this research was the medical team led by Ugo Cerletti.

Born in 1877, Ugo Cerletti had studied with the most eminent neurologists of his time before graduating with twin specialties in neurology and neuropsychiatry. By 1935, he had become the Chair of the Department of Mental and Neurological Diseases at Universita Di Roma 'La Sapienza". After visiting Vienna to study insulin coma therapy under Manfred Sakel, Cerletti formed his own research program into chemical convulsion treatments. After observing the use of electrical stunning on hogs being prepared for slaughter however, Cerletti was struck by an inspiration. Since epileptic-type seizures induced by insulin and metrazol were already being used to treat schizophrenics in many countries, could electrically induced convulsions be used as well?

As part of his long-term research project, Cerletti used dogs as test subjects to induce seizures electrically. Although half of the animals died as a result of shock stopping the heart, Cerletti and his research assistant Lucio Bini discovered that electric current could be safely administered if the electrodes were applied to the dog's temples. The dog experiments continued (with the dog catcher's wagon making weekly stops at the clinic) and the bodies were autopsied to examine the effect of electric shock on their brains.

Despite perfecting the technique on dogs, testing the procedure on a human subject was very different. Cerletti was extremely hesitant about taking this next step for obvious reasons. As primary researcher, he would bear full responsibility for any death or serious injury that resulted. Still, his research team (Bini, Ferdinando Accornero and Lamberto Longhi) developed an experimental device that would develop 80 to 100 volts of electricity for a fraction of a second.

And then...

On April 15, 1938, a 39-year old engineer from Milan was arrested while wandering about the railroad station in Rome. The patient (identified only as "S.E") was found to be actively hallucinating and complaining about being "telepathically influenced". Diagnosed with schizophrenia, S.E. became the first test subject for the new treatment (which Cerletti named electroshock). Exactly who provided the informed consent for the use of this experimental procedure on a human patient isn't recorded.

There are different versions of what happened during that first session (the actual date is disputed although it occurred in April, 1938). In addition to Cerletti and his team, there was also medical observers and a male nurse to tend to the patient. S.E. was reportedly very docile as he lay on the examining table while the electrodes were attached to his temples. The first trial was at 80 volts for a tenth of a second and all that happened was that the patient contracted suddenly and then relaxed. His vital signs were carefully monitored with no apparent problems.

After a second trial with the voltage raised to 90 volts with no apparent reaction (although the patient did start singing), the team debated whether to try again. It was at this point when the patient stated in a calm voice, "Careful, the first is pestiferous, the second mortiferous". Although the researchers were puzzled by what he meant, they continued on to the next stage.

On the third trial, with the apparatus turned up to the maximum voltage, S.E. had a classic grand mal epileptic seizure. He became pale, turned blue, and then stopped breathing. The doctors found that his heart was racing and, after forty-eight seconds, S.E. began breathing again on his own (so did the doctors). The patient then sat up calmly and asked what they wanted from him. According to Cerletti's account, S.E. denied any memory of what had just happened. And so ended the first electroshock treatment session.

After ten additional electroshock sessions, S.E. was considered well enough to be discharged from the hospital on June 17, 1938. Cerletti later reported that the patient was "in good condition and well oriented" and could return to his engineering job in Milan. A follow-up assessment a year later found the patient reporting that he was "very well". His wife added her own concerns about her husband's condition, however. She reported that her husband became increasingly paranoid and jealous just a few months after his release. She also mentioned that "sometimes during the night he would speak as though in answer to voices”. While electroshock was no cure for schizophrenia, Cerletti continued to use it with countless other patients and his discovery would soon be adopted around the world.

For better or worse, a new era had begun in psychiatry.

Continue to Part Two.

The Cenci Case

Nobody ever really believed that Francesco Cenci's death was an accident.

On September 10, 1598, his body was found with a smashed skull outside the family castle in Petrella Del Santo (near Rome) and authorities were immediately suspicious. It was well known that Francesco Cenci had numerous enemies, not the least of which were his own children. His notorious reputation had gotten him in trouble with the Church on various occasions but his position as a wealthy aristocrat had always kept him safe. Francesco's cruelty towards his five children and his second wife, Lucrezia Petroni, was well known and he had often vowed that he would outlive them all (he may have had a hand in the death of at least one of his sons). Other rumours of dark deeds surrounded him, especially concerning his relationship with his daughter Beatrice.

Born in 1577, any hope that Beatrice might have had of marrying out of the family the way that her older sister did was crushed by Francesco's determination to keep her under his control. It's hard to separate truth from lurid fiction at this point but at least some sources claim that he abused Beatrice sexually. Francesco was furious when she tried to lay a complaint against him and he sent Beatrice and her stepmother into exile away from Rome.

We'll never know exactly when Beatrice, Lucrezia and the surviving Cenci sons, Giacomo and Bernardo, first decided to kill Francesco. The testimony in the case is probably unreliable since most of it was gained through torture (even though it was enough for conviction) but there is little else available. The murder was apparently carried out with the help of Abbe Guerra (a clergyman who was in love with Beatrice). After a poisoning attempt failed, the family eventually smashed Francesco's skull and threw him off a balcony to make it look like an accident. Beatrice and Lucrezia played their parts perfectly and an elaborate funeral was later held.

Pope Clement VIII remained suspicious and arranged for the body to be exhumed so that a medical examination could be made. The disappearance of Abbe Guerra (he had escaped before he could be arrested) and the death of an assassin who had assisted in the murder helped build the case against the family members. I'll spare you the details of the various torture methods that were available at the time but they have been well documented elsewhere. Although Giacomo and Lucrezia eventually confessed, Beatrice was able to resist until she was confronted with the testimony of the others. All of the family members involved in the murder, including 12-year old Bernardo Cenci, were sentenced to death. Pope Clement rejected any plea for mercy and ordered the sentences to be carried out.

On September 10, 1599, the entire family received their final sacraments before being taken to Piazza Castel Sant'Angela in Rome for the execution. Despite a last-minute pardon for Bernardo, he was forced to watch as all the others were executed (he collapsed as Beatrice was led to the scaffold but was revived). Beatrice and Lucrezia were beheaded while Giacomo (whose body bore clear marks of torture) was beheaded, drawn and quartered (the pieces were hung from butcher's blocks). The bodies were kept on display in the Piazza until evening and then released for burial. Beatrice's body was carried in a procession down to the the church of San Pietro in Montorio where she had asked to be buried. It was a day-long spectacle and several of those attending died from heat stroke.

To nobody's surprise, the bulk of the Cenci fortune vanished into the coffers of the Pope's supporters (Bernardo was forced to pay a substantial fine as a condition of his pardon). Aside from Bernardo and Giacomo's children, the Cenci family was largely wiped out but the legends surrounding Beatrice Cenci lived on. According to at least one account, the two executioners who had carried out the death sentences died within a month of her death (one by suicide, the other by murder). She became a figure of legend with stories of her haunting the piazza where she died on each anniversary of her death.

The story of Beatrice Cenci has been appeared in numerous books, plays, an opera and a movie. Percey Bysshe Shelley, Alexander Dumas (pere), Nathaniel Hawthorne and Stendhal wrote extensively about the lurid crime associated with her name. The tragedy has a sadly modern ring to it since domestic violence and parental abuse continue even today. All too often, victims still resort to violence to protect themselves from their abusers, especially when they are given no other options. While some progress has been made, it's still not nearly enough to prevent other domestic tragedies from happening.

Visitors to Rome can still see the haunting portrait of Beatrice (reportedly painted shortly after her death) hanging in Rome's Barberini gallery in addition to her tomb and the Palazzo Cenci where she lived. The executioner's blade that beheaded her is on display in Rome's Criminology Museum. They are fitting reminders about a tragic story and it's brutal ending.

After The Prophecy

It was in 1954 when Dorothy Martin predicted the end of the world as we know it (and became part of psychological history in the process).

Born in 1900 in Mount Shasta, California, she was a housewife living in the Chicago area when she first came to national attention. Having a longstanding interest in psychic phenomena and theosophy (and was also "cleared" by a dianetics group), she first came in contact with advanced beings from the planet Clarion through her experiments in automatic writing. Through these beings (the most important of whom was her personal mentor, Sananda), she was informed that they had been visiting Earth and monitoring fault lines in the planet's crust. They warned her that a great flood would strike the Chicago area just before dawn on December 24, 1954. The flood would then form an inland sea stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and a subsequent cataclysm would destroy much of the West Coast from Seattle, Washington down to South America. A flying saucer would come to rescue those who were true believers.

Martin had already become involved with a local flying saucer cult known as "The Seekers" and they responded eagerly to the messages from Sananda and the other Clarions. Their efforts to warn the public of the coming disaster were published in a local newspaper story under the headline: PROPHECY FROM PLANET. CLARION CALL TO CITY: FLEE THAT FLOOD. IT'LL SWAMP US ON DEC. 21, OUTER SPACE TELLS SUBURBANITE (it didn't make the front page for some reason). The two-column story was accompanied by a photograph of Martin with a pencil and pad in her hand and described her experiences in communicating with the "superior beings" who had relayed the warning. It was this newspaper article that first attracted the attention of social psychologist, Leon Festinger.

As later written in the seminal classic When Prophecy Fails (published in 1956), Festinger and his colleagues, Stanley Schacter and Henry W. Riecken, first interviewed Martin in October, 1954 . Given that she was making a prediction about a specific future event which had already become the focus of media attention, the researchers decided to carry out a field study examining apocalytic belief. They also viewed it as an ideal test of Festinger's fledgeling theory of cognitive dissonance.

Mrs Martin and her fellow Seekers (in the book, her name was changed to Marian Keech) strongly believed in her prediction and had already started making arrangements for their departure for Clarion. The three researchers and their fellow cohorts were able to infiltrate the group and provide a fascinating look at what happened before and after December 21. When the Seekers' attempts at "telling the world" were largely ignored, their efforts at proselytizing ended in September when Dorothy Martin was reportedly told by two strange visitors to end all warning efforts and "await further orders". The exact number of Seekers involved in the movement was never made clear but their mailing list ran to hundreds of names.

There was a surprising lack of effort on the part of the Seekers to recruit new members and the researchers had difficulty in infiltrating the movement. Their meetings mainly involved readings of Dorothy Martin's teachings, sharing of mystical experiences, and writing letters urging President Eisenhower to reveal the "secret information" that the U.S. Air Force had collected on flying saucers. Plans to relocate to the mountains were scrapped in favour of waiting for Sananda and the other "Guardians" to transport them from the Seekers' headquarters in Dorothy Martin's house in Chicago.

Then came December 20 when the final group of fifteen to twenty Seekers met in the Martin home to await their salvation. Based on Dorothy Martin's messages from Sananda, the aliens would come at midnight to take them to their new home. To prevent being burned by contact with the alien spacecraft, the Seekers were instructed to remove all metal from their bodies (including zippers and bra straps). The book describes with some detail the suspense as midnight approached and passed and the group became increasingly disappointed. Finally, at 4:45 am, Dorothy Martin received another message stating that the cataclysm had been called off by the "God of Earth". Apparently their group had impressed God with their faith and the human race was spared as a result.

Now came the hard part of telling the world. Dorothy Martin and her supporters were dismayed at the negative reaction that they received from the newspapers and wire services that they contacted. Martin took news of earthquakes in Italy and California as confirmation of her predictions of disaster but there was little else in the weeks that followed. As media interest trickled off, the group slowly dwindled. Dorothy Martin received other messages but they tended to be even more incomprehensible with time.

Responding to complaints from her neighbours, police warned Dorothy Martin that would be arrested and possibly committed to a psychiatric hospital if she persisted with her activities. She went into hiding and eventually joined a dianetics centre in Arizona. The book ends with the group being entirely dispersed although that was not quite the case as we shall see.

Discussing the social psychology surrounding persistence of belief in failed prophecies, Festinger and his colleagues proposed the following five necessary conditions: 1. There must be conviction. 2. There must be commitment to this conviction. i.e, believers have to have taken an important action that is hard to undo (such as quitting a job or selling a house). 3. The conviction must be amenable to unequivocal disconfirmation, i.e, there must be a way of testing the conviction 4. Such unequivocal disconfirmation must occur. 5. Social support must be available subsequent to the disconfirmation (Groups of believers can support one another better than isolated believers).

Despite failures to replicate these findings with other apocalytic groups (and there are more of those around than you might think), When Prophecy Fails represents a fascinating inside look at the mechanics of belief and how it interacts with human behaviour.

Dorothy Martin lived in Peru for several years before returning to Arizona. In 1965, she founded the Association of Sananda and Samat Kumara. Under her new name of "Sister Thedra", she continued to act as a channel for Sananda and was prominent in the UFO contact community until her death in 1992. The association that she founded is still active.

The Emperor's Funeral

The funeral for Joshua Abraham Norton held on January 10, 1880 was a grandiose spectacle.  As many as 30,000 mourners made up of people from every level of San Francisco society took part in a funeral cortege that was two miles long.  They all turned out to witness the passing of the one of the cities most memorable characters.

Born in London, England in 1819, Joshua Norton emigrated to San Francisco in 1849 with a tidy sum that he had inherited from his father. He flourished for a time as a wholesale grocer before losing everything in a risky attempt to corner the Peruvian rice market. He made several attempts to recoup his losses before dropping out of sight in 1857. Where he went is still a mystery but his return to San Francisco two years later was certainly memorable.

It quickly became clear that Norton had become mentally unbalanced. Wearing a strange blue uniform with gold epaulets and a beaver hat, Norton proclaimed himself "Emperor of the United States and Defender of Mexico". For the rest of his life, he would be a familiar sight to San Franciscans as he issued numerous proclamations as well as his own currency (which local restaurants and stores honoured). Wherever the Emperor Norton went, he was accompanied by his two dogs, Lazarus and Bummer. When Lazarus died in 1863 (after being run over by a fire truck), the city paid for the funeral and hundreds of mourners attended. Mark Twain himself wrote an epitaph for Bummer when he died two years later.

His proclamations, despite his having no actual authority, made for good reading in the newspapers and editors frequently published them. Among other things, Norton ordered the governor of Virginia removed from office, barred Congress from meeting in Washington, D.C., and even ordered the United States government dissolved. Newspaper editors were not above inventing their own proclamations (usually reflecting their political biases) and attributing them to the Emperor.

In 1867, an overeager police officer arrested Norton and attempted to have him involuntarily treated. The outraged San Franciscans nearly rioted and newspaper editorials savaged the police force. Police Chief Patrick Crowley apologized to the Emperor and ordered his release. Norton, in turn, issued a formal pardon to the officer who had arrested him. Afterwards, police officers made it a habit to salute Norton whenever he went about his regular inspections of the city.

The Emperor Norton became extremely well-known due to the writings of Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson (who both created characters based on Norton in their books). His letters to world leaders such as President Lincoln and Queen Victoria were taken seriously. In the 1870 census, Norton was formally listed with the occupation of "Emperor". There were numerous rumours surrounding Joseph Norton. For all that he appeared penniless, it was suggested that he was secretly wealthy despite his known history.

On January 8, 1880, the Emperor collapsed while on his way to give a lecture at the California Academy of Natural Sciences. The police officer on the scene tried to get him to a hospital but he died before help could arrive. The cause of death was later given as apoplexy (hemorrhagic stroke). The San Ferancisco Chronicle ran a front page obituary titled "Le Roi Est Mort" (The King Is Dead). A rival newspaper announced that ""Norton the First, by the grace of God Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico, departed this life".

It was only after his death that the full extent of his poverty became known. His small boarding-house room was found to contain nothing more than a collection of walking sticks, copies of his letters to various notables, newspaper clippings, and shares in a worthless gold mine.Initial plans for a pauper's burial were quickly scrapped and he received a grand funeral at the city's expense. The strange story of Joshua Norton didn't end with his death and funeral. In 1934, he was reburied in Woodlawn Cemetery, again at the city's expense. On the hundredth anniversary of his death, formeral ceremonies were held in different parts of the city to mark the memory of San Francisco's only monarch.

So why was Joshua Norton unofficially adopted as a mascot for San Franciscan society while so many other mentally ill transients were locked away in insane asylums? To begin with, there was a definite method in his madness. Norton knew enough not to push the limits more than necessary. The currency that he issued never exceeded small amounts and his proclamations were often quite sensible. He was also extremely likeable (not to mention a tourist attraction) and, in many ways, lived better as a mad Emperor than he did as a prosperous businessman. 

Joshua Norton's legacy seems to live on. Archives of his various proclamations and writings are available online and the currency that he issued continues to be prized by collectors. While grandiose delusions seem to be a common enough feature in some forms of mental illness (I once dealt with a self-proclaimed King of Canada during my time as a prison psychologist), there was only one Emperor Norton.

The Shattered Man

The Battle of Smolensk was part of a two-month offensive in 1943 designed to drive Nazi invaders from the city that they had held for two years. Although the offensive was ultimately successful, it came at a terrible cost.with much of Smolensk being devastated.by the occupation and the battle to retake the city. Thousands were killed or seriously injured including one 23-year old lieutenant named Lev Zasetky.

Born in 1920 in the town of Kazanovka (now Kimovsk) in Russia's Tula region, Zasetsky completed his third year of courses at a polytechnic institute when war broke out in 1941. His writings contain only scattered recollections of his childhood but he comes across as a bright young man with a promising future before being sent to the western front. It was on March 2, 1943 when he received the injury that would alter his entire life. A bullet penetrated the parieto-occipital area of the cranium and left him in a coma. Despite prompt treatment at a field hospital, Zasetsky's case was complicated by meningitis and scarring of the lateral ventricles. The location of the brain damage and the progressive medullary atrophy that resulted would have far-reaching effects on him.

Describing his experiences in the field hospital following his injury, Zatseky wrote: "For some reason, I couldn't remember anything, couldn't say anything. My head seemed completely empty, flat, hadn't the suggestion of a thought or memory, just a dull ache and buzz, a dizzy feeling". Relearning language in the hospital was a long, slow process and most details of autobiographical memory were missing. He would later describe himself as having been "killed" due to his injury and living a "senseless existence" as a result. Lev Zasetsky was sent to a rehabilitation hospital and it was in May of that same year that he first met Alexander Luria.

Already a prominent brain researcher, Luria spent much of World War II as head of a research team investigating psychological assessment and treatment techniques in brain-injured soldiers. His research would lay much of the groundwork for the modern field of neuropsychology. As with his other famous patient, Solomon Shereshevsky, Luria regarded Zasetsky as an ideal candidate for a longitudinal study that continued over the course of the next twenty-eight years,

Even after his discharge from the hospital, Luria met with Zasetsky on a regular basis and would later publish his findings in the classic work The Man With a Shattered World in 1972. Not only did the book summarize Luria's findings, but it also included excerpts of Zasetsky's own writings. As a way of coping while in hospital, Zasetsky forced himself to begin writing about his injury and struggle to deal with his devastating impairments..

Based on pneumencephalography results and Luria's observations, it was determined that Zasetsky's perceptions of the world had been profoundly altered by his injury. Not only was he experiencing a form of homonymous hemianopsia (loss of half the visual field in both eyes), but he was no longer aware of the right side of his body. When asked to raise his right hand, he became confused and agitated although his motor functioning seemed unimpaired. Becoming aware of the right side of a page or a photograph meant having to move his head to place the missing information into his range of vision. Being asked to identify different parts of his body was a major challenge and he was frequently forced to "hunt" for the location of the hand, foot, or arm that he was trying to name.

The "spatial peculiarities" that Zasetsky experienced made writing a particular challenge for him. He forced himself to learn how to sit at a table and grasp a pencil properly. Not only was his concept of self affected, but his grasp of language as well. He was forced to retrain his brain to make simple logical assumptions and judgment tasks.After months in the rehabilitation hospital, Lev Zasetsky was finally sent home to the care of his family in Kimovsk. A nurse accompanied him to the railroad station and provided him with his family's address on a sheet of paper. Despite initial confidence that he could reach home on his own, his mental confusion forced him to depend on strangers for assistance. Even when finally reaching Kimovsk, he had difficulty recognizing his family home and found himself getting lost whenever he left the house for brief walks.

Simple tasks such as reading maps, and doing household chores became agonizingly difficult for him. When his family bought a new kerosene cooking stove, Zasetsky spent weeks trying to understand the instruction manual and eventually learned to operate the stove through trial and error. Although he would return to see Luria at regular intervals, the wounded soldier never regained his former independence. The promising young man who had gone to war seemed to be lost forever.

Despite Zasetsky's devastating impairments, he was forced to deal with a skeptical bureaucracy that questioned whether a veteran with no visible injuries could even be considered disabled (a common problem with neurological patients). At one point, he would have his veteran's benefits cut and needed the active intervention of family members and therapists to have them restored. In the decades that followed, Lev Zasesky continued to add to his journals (eventually running to thousands of pages which were carefully archived by Luria's assistants).

The final chapter of Luria's book is simply titled "The Story That Has No Ending" and shows Zasetsky continuing as before. His condition never improved and he remained dependent on his family for care. He himself would write that "Over two decades have slipped by and I'm still caught in a vicious circle. I can't break out of it and become a healthy person with a clear memory and mind". For all that his case inspired generations of treatment professionals, there was little help for him.

I have no idea what became of Lev Zasetsky in later life (Luria himself died in 1977) or even if he is still living in Kimovsk, writing his journal. As an epilogue to his book, Luria speculated on the cost of war and the number of lives that have been destroyed as a result. It's a lament that still has relevance today given the rising number of brain-damaged veterans who need treatment more than ever.

Jekyll, Hyde and Brodie

When Robert Louis Stevenson first published The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde in 1886, it was an immediate success and became one of his most memorable classics. Through numerous movies, television dramatizations, and plays, the story has entered the cultural mainstream. Although Stevenson had originally meant the book to explore his fascination with the duality of good and evil (which he had briefly touched on in his early short story, Markheim), he was largely inspired by a famous case that had rocked eighteenth century Scotland.

Born in 1741 in Edinburgh, Scotland, William Brodie was the son of a prominent cabinetmaker and was likely considered quite a disappointment to his parents. From an early age, he was reportedly a gambler and a playboy who was off gambling even while his father lay dying. He had a knack for charming family and friends into forgiving his excesses, though. After his father died, Brodie apparently straightened out his life to become a successful cabinetmaker in his own right. Not only was he a member of the Edinburgh city council, he was also elected deacon (chairman) of the local trades guild. He socialized frequently and was a well-known figure in Edinburgh society.

During the evening hours, things were very different. His gambling had continued and, finding himself running short of money, decided to supplement his income through crime. Brodie's legitimate work gave him the opportunity to take wax impressions of the main doors of the various houses that he would later burglarize. Teaming up with an English locksmith named George Smith, his criminal career was impressive (he and his gang once stole the silver mace from the University of Edinburgh).

The energetic Brodie certainly needed the income from his criminal activities. In addition to fueling his chronic gambling, he also maintained two mistresses in separate households (neither of whom knew about the other), and had numerous children. While his gang continued to terrorize Edinburgh, Brodie maintained his image as a prosperous businessman. As a respected cabinetmaker and carpenter, he was in a position to install locks and security devices in businesses and private homes across the city (while checking out places for his gang to rob).

It all came to an end with a disastrous armed raid on a government Excise office in Chessel's Court, Canongate in 1786. Although Brodie planned the operation himself, too many things went wrong and the gang only barely escaped. The city council posted a huge reward and one of the newer gang members (there being no honour among thieves) decided to turn King's evidence. Brodie managed to get word that the other gang members had been arrested and fled to Amsterdam. Things still grew too hot for him there and he was arrested by Dutch police just before he could board a boat to America.

Extradited back to Scotland, William Brodie went on trial on August 27th, 1788. The trial records are still available and make for fascinating reading.  He pled not guilty and his testimony was filled with righteous indignation against the "designing villain John Brown" (the gang member who had turned him in). Building a case against Brodie would have been difficult if a careful search of his house hadn't turned up assorted burglary tools. William Brodie and George Smith were sentenced to be hanged on October 1, 1788.

There still seems to be some confusion as to what happened with the actual hanging at the Tolbooth prison in Aberdeen. At least one account maintains that Brodie had arranged to wear a steel collar to the gallows (and had bribed the executioner to ignore it) so that he could survive the hanging. Despite the arrangements that he had made to have his body quickly removed, he could not be revived and was later buried in an unmarked grave in a churchyard in Buccleuch. There were later rumours of his having cheated the hangman and fleeing to Paris but no real evidence exists of this.

It's not hard to see what inspired Stevenson to base his novel on William Brodie's double life. On one hand, he was a prosperous businessman and respected craftsman (who, among other things, made much of the scaffolding on the gallows that was later used to hang him). On the other hand, he was the notorious leader of a gang of thieves that plagued Edinburgh for years. Much of the resemblance ends there though. Brodie was never a saintly Henry Jekyll, or even a thuggish Edward Hyde. He was just a full-time criminal who was particularly good at pretending to be law-abiding.

For all that there was no evidence of the psychological conflict that marked Stevenson's title character, the novel gave William Brodie a curious literary immortality. Along with a pub and alleyway named for him on Edinburgh's Royal Mile (which I plan to visit the next time I'm there), the novel is a strange monument to this once-feared master criminal.