Providentia

The Last POW

It was in the summer of 1998 when a Russian doctor was asked to examine an elderly patient at a hospital in Kazan (450 miles east of Moscow).   Aside from the name under which he had been admitted, Andras Tamas, and the fact that he had been a long-time psychiatric patient in a nearby psychiatric hospital, very little was known about the case.   The psychiatric hospital had arranged for Tamas to be sent to Kazan because he had already lost his left leg to circulatory problems and was suffering from high blood pressure.  

According to the file, Tamas was schizophrenic and the staff at the psychiatric hospital had never been able to understand his "mumbling".  Still, the doctor who had been called in to interview Tamas had one advantage that they didn't - he had grown up near the Hungarian border and c0uld recognize that Tamas was speaking Hungarian.  In fact, Tamas knew almost no Russian and had been unable to communicate with staff in the five decades he had been in the hospital.   Incredible as it seemed, Tamas had somehow been hospitalized in Russia with no one being aware that he was actually a Hungarian citizen.    

During the fifty-five years that he was in hospital, Tamas was incapable of communicating with staff or patients and, on the rare occasions that he tried to write something, would have his writings confiscated by suspicious attendants.  He was also incapable of reading any of the newspapers or books available to him and couldn't make any sense of television or radio broadcasts (all of which were in Russian.  And, naturally enough, the "severity" of his mental illness and lack of any real progress in treatment meant that he could never leave.

In a subsequent search of archival records, authorities finally managed to piece Tamas' story together.   He had been a private in the Hungarian army during World War II when he was captured along with other troops by the Red Army in 1945.  Despite the war coming to an end, he still spent two years in a prisoner-of-war camp near Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) until the camp was officially closed.   He and his fellow Hungarians were then placed on a train bound for a camp in Siberia.   What this basically involved was a 21-day odyssey in which he was stuffed along with his fellow prisoners in a cramped boxcar.   Not only did many of the prisoners end up suffocating, but Tamas  began to show signs of what records indicated was "severe psychosis" (likely brought on  by having to sleep on the dead bodies of his  comrades). 

As a result, he was taken off the train and committed to the Kopernich hospital.  Since he had no documentation with him (aside from one note stating that he was suffering from "psycho-neurosis", doctors simply admitted him and dismissed his speaking in an unknown language as a symptom of mental illness.   And there he would remain.

While investigators alerted Hungarian authorities in an attempt to send Tamas home, they were immediately stymied by a rather basic problem -  they didn't know his true name.   Not only was there no record of an "Andras Tamas" in the Hungarian military records but Tamas himself, after decades in the hospital, could no longer recall what his name had been originally.   In fact, after decades of almost total isolation, getting him to say anything comprehensible proved to be a challenge.  

Finally, after two years of legal wrangling, Tamas was issued a Hungarian passport and flown back to Hungary on August 11, 2000.   Given his poor condition, he was immediately placed in the Psychiatric and Neurological Institute in Budapest where he could receive proper medical care.   Not only did he finally receive a prosthetic leg (the first thing he asked for), but he was also given a new set of dentures and a hearing aid.   Meanwhile, doctors and investigators from the Ministry of Defense were frantically trying to discover his true identity.   Naturally enough, given the publicity surrounding his return to Hungary, hundreds of families eagerly sought information in the hope that he might be one of their missing relatives.  

Though it took him a while to relearn how to speak normally, Tamas was finally able to provide details about his early life, including the town where he had been born and that he had been a blacksmith's apprentice before being drafted into the army.    He still couldn't identify his regiment though he had enough basic knowledge of armaments that investigators concluded that he had been in an artillery unit.   Finally, based on the cues that Tamas provided, investigators managed to identify his home town, located 145 miles north of Budapest, and, eventually, his true name. 

Though he had lived most of his life as Andras Tamas, he was actually Andras Toma and, amazingly enough, still had a half-sister and a half-brother who remembered him.   In fact, his half sister, Anna Gabulya would later tell reporters that she had seen the media coverage when Andras had been repatriated to Hungary and had been struck by his resemblance to her late father.   She had been reluctant to notify authorities given all the other families doing the same.   In the end, DNA testing would be needed to  prove that he was Andras Toma and that he could finally return home.

But taking in the frail and disoriented ex-POW proved to be an ordeal for his half-sister and her husband.   Not only was Andras still confined to a wheelchair, but he was utterly terrified of any form of physical contact.  "The first evening, we bathed him and put him to bed,"  Gabulya said in one interview.  "Then my husband and I looked at each other, each thinking, "How are we going to survive this?"  In the days that followed, Andras mainly sat on his bed wearing nothing but pajamas and his old army cap.   He also ate his meals in total silence and largely refused to be drawn into conversations.   Only after he became settled into a regular routine, including wood carving, helping with some household chores, and  scattering bread crumbs for sparrows, did he finally become more relaxed with his relatives.

But there was still the question of what to do about his military service.    As a prisoner of war, he had never been formally discharged from the military.  This meant that he had been serving his country non-stop since he joined the army in 1944.   Not only was the Hungarian government obliged to pay him for all the years he had been away from home, but, in a formal public ceremony, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant-major before being officially discharged.  

Once the publicity died down, Toma was allowed to return to the hospital in Budapest given that his schizophrenia still needed to be managed.  Since his symptoms weren't severe enough to require institutionalization, his doctors agreed to release him into the care of his half-sister.   For the rest of his life,  he managed well enough living with Anna and her family until his death in 2004 at the age of 78.    As Hungary's last POW, he received a grand military funeral with over 2000 mourners in attendance and was buried in a military cemetery not far from his home.

Though he never really recovered from his decades of isolation,  the ones who knew Andras Toma best say that he found a certain sense of peace at the end, and even regained his sense of humour.   While Russian authorities searched to see if anyone else had fallen between the cracks the way that Toma had, his case proved to be unique.   While other Hungarian families held out hope that other missing relatives might eventually be discovered, Andras Toma remains the last POW from World War Two to be successfully repatriated.  

Can Movies Inspire Copycat Violence?

In 1995, a 14-year  boy, Sandy Charles, lured a 7-year old acquaintance into some bushes near their homes in the town of La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan under the pretext of playing a baseball game with him.    With the help of an unnamed 7-year old accomplice, Charles then stabbed and bludgeoned Jonathan Thimpsen.   After the murder,  Sandy  Charles then mutilated the body by removing strips of skin which he took home to place in a tin can covered in foil.   An intense search of the area by friends and family led to Jonathan's body being found three days later.   After an investigation, Sandy Charles was arrested.

As Charles would later admit to investigators, he boiled the skin on the family stove to reduced the fat to liquid but had refrained from actually drinking it stating that, "I just wanted to stay the way I am."   According to testimony later presented in court, Jonathan had been selected at random so that his fat could be harvested based on a scene from the 1989 movie, Warlock.    The movie, featuring a 17th century warlock who travels to the future, includes an off-camera murder of a young boy so that his fat could be extracted to make a potion enabling the warlock to fly.   According to Sandy Charles' mother, her son had become obsessed with the movie and saw it more than ten times.    While he admitted committing the crime to her, he also insisted that he could not stop himself.  "H esaid it was like a dream. He said he didn't want to do it, but it was like it wasn't him doing it", she reported.   He also later said that "There's a strong spirit in my room that gave me these thoughts.   I was going to commit suicide until this thing popped into myh ead. I started thinking about killing someone else. Something wanted meto." 

The killing of Jonathan Thimpsen and the subsequent publicity of Charles' trial generated international publicity given the age of the victim and the perpetrator as well as the bizarre circumstances involved.    The RCMP officers investigating the murder concealed many of the details for fear of possible "mass hysteria."     In a public statement before the trial began, RCMP Corporal Dave Hoefl refused to provide full details about the murder due to the possible impact on jury selection.  "When you take a look at a 14-year-old doing this to a seven- year-old, there has to be a reason.  There is a reason. We just have to decide whether it's in the public interest to know that reason right now," he said.   "I'm not sure whether the community is ready for this or not - and in reality, I don't even think the province is ready for it."   Based on the circumstances of the crime,  Sandy Charles was tried for  murder in an adult court.

During the trial, his defense attorney, Barry Singer, insisted that Charles was not guilty due to mental illness and that the movie had a powerful effect on his mind.  "In the movie, the idea was that if you cut the fat off a virgin, unbaptised child, then boiled it down and drank it. That would give you the power to fly," said Singer. "Sandy was suffering from the delusion that if he did these things, it would give him the power to fly. The movie just gave him the know-how to do it."    Following the lurid testimony given during the trial, Sandy Charles was later found guilty by reason of insanity on August 2, 1996.  He was transferred to the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon where he was held until 2013 when he applied to be transferred to a secure psychiatric unit closer to his home.  

As many expected, the trial generated considerable debate concerning the link between movie violence and real-life crimes.    In their coverage of the murder, the Toronto Globe and Mail cited experts who warned against drawing general conclusions from the murder but also warned that violent movies could be a "precipitating event" for an already troubled child.    Based on concerns relating to movie violence as well as a petition in the early 1990s calling for an end to violence on television, the Canadian government passed legislation forcing cable companies to enable parents to block violent programs  deemed unsuitable for  children.  Similar legislation was passed in the United States months later.

The debate concerning the potential impact of media violence on impressionable children is a longstanding one.   During the 1950s, Fredric Wertham's crusade against violence in comic books led to the implementation of the Comics Code Authority while similar crusades against violence in video games, music lyrics, and the Internet have had limited success.    Concerns over the potential impact of inappropriate content in movies and television programs has generated considerable controversy over the years due to concerns about children modeling their behaviour on graphic violence seen on screen. 

Moral panics over violent movie and television content remain a familiar phenomenon, especially as new, shocking media depictions of graphic violence help inspire  to calls for greater censorship.   Certainly the number of films that have faced censorship over the years  in the United States alone, often for minor scenes that would likely have gone unnoticed by the audiences supposedly being protected, is mind-boggling.   In other countries, battles over movies such as A Clockwork Orange led to either outright censorship or awkward compromises with movies being either dramatically reedited or removed from distribution altogether.   Though changing social standards and legal challenges led to a reevaluation of many of the production codes that controlled movie content for decades, the battle over what can be shown on the screen is far from over.  

But does media violence really lead to youth violence?  Though Albert Bandura's classic Bobo Doll experiments suggest that children tend to imitate aggressive behaviours that they see being modeled,  the impact of observational learning as it applies to movie and television violence seems more muted.   No clear causal link between media violence and real-life crimes has ever been found despite decades of media violence research.   Certainly the rise in movie and television violence of the past two decades has not led to a similar increase in real-life violence.  If anything, there has been a sharp decrease in violence during that same period, especially among adolescents.   Though school shootings and other examples of extreme violence appear to inspire copycat offenses, most young people appear perfectly capable of distinguishing between fictional violence and the real thing.  

A more controversial theory about media violence deals with the idea of catharsis, or using violent media content to purge viewers of their violent thoughts or fantasies.   The term "catharsis" was first coined by Aristotle who suggested in his Poetics that watching violent Greek tragedies helped audiences "through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions".   In other words, watching violent movies or television shows made people less inclined to commit violent acts.    This was in direct opposition to Plato's view that plays, music, and literature had a potentially harmful affect on morals (thus making him the first moral crusader).     Along with being a common theme in literature, catharsis has also been adopted by psychoanalysts such as Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud

While most moral panics surrounding media violence tend to peter out fairly quickly, new panics often arise to take their place.   Though cases such as Sandy Charles continue to be invoked as a justification for greater control over media content, actual evidence to support such control is often lacking.    More graphic cases of copycat violence can definitely be expected in future but the knee-jerk reaction, and the calls for control will likely follow the same old pattern.

Is Confession Good For The Soul?

Confessions are commonplace. Even when embarrassing or otherwise damaging, we seem intrinsically motivated to open up to others and confess mistakes we have made. Although there may be many reasons one might choose to disclose one’s “sins,” very little is known about what confession actually does, particularly concerning its effect on future behavior. A new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examines confession in the context of one’s personal self-control failures in consumption, asking the central question: does confession lead to repentance (i.e., enhanced subsequent self-control) or relapse (reduced subsequent self-control)? The researchers predict and demonstrate that the effect of confession on ensuing behavior depends largely on the amount of guilt a confessor feels regarding their behavior prior to confession. Across five studies, they find that confessing (versus not confessing) high-guilt transgressions boosts subsequent self-control, whereas confessing relatively low-guilt indiscretions promotes further relapse. Further, initial evidence suggests that changes in self-discrepancy following a confession drive subsequent changes in self-control behaviors. A single paper meta-analysis demonstrates the robustness of  these key effects and provides further support for the role of self-discrepancy in the underlying process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

For the ab

When Bullying Begins at Home

Bullying, in all its forms, can be emotionally devastating for anyone who experiences it.   But what happens if the bullying is taking place right at home?

With an estimated 85 percent of all children grow up with at least one brother or sister, sibling relationships can can play an important role in shaping a child's mental and emotional development, not to mention establishing bonds that can last a lifetime.  But the quality of these relationships often vary widely and, even in the best of circumstances, can mean considerable emotional tension at times.    Researchers have long established that friction between siblings can lead to various behavioural and emotional problems in children and adolescents.   And these problems can extend well into adulthood.   

This is especially true for sibling bullying, often defined as "repeated aggressive behavior between siblings intended to inflict harm".  Such bullying can take many forms including physical abuse (i.e., hitting, kicking, or pushing), psychological abuse (saying deliberately hurtful things),  social sabotage (spreading rumours or telling lies about the siblings), or vandalism against a sibling's possessions.   Often motivated by a real or perceived power imbalance or complaints of differential treatment, sibling bullying is the most frequently occurring form of family violence.   Reported estimates of sibling bullying across childhood and adolescence range from 15–5o percent with victimization rates frequently peaking between the ages of two and nine.  

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

Malawi Man Sentenced to Death over Slaying of Albino Teen

A Malawi High Court sentenced a 28-year-old man who confessed to the murder of a 19-year-old albino teenage as part of an alleged scheme to become wealthy by witchcraft.    

During the trial, the court heard testimony that the accused had based his scheme on instructions provided by a witch-doctor in neighboring Mozambique.

Albinos in many parts of Africa have been targeted in recent years due to the widespread belief in witchcraft rituals that use albino body parts for achieving wealth.  In Malawi alone, the abduction and murder of 150 albino children and teenagers since 2014 has reduced the country to a "state of terror" according to Justice Mclean Kamwambe who handed down the latest sentence.  

“The death sentence is appropriate as it reflects a sense of justice in the circumstances,” he said at Malawi’s High Court.  He added his hope that the sentence would sent a stern warning to would-be offenders and that albino killings have damaged Malawi's reputation abroad.

The recent rise in albino murders has become a major issue in the upcoming federal election with the main opposition party accusing the government of doing little to stop the killings.   Government sources insist that they are continuing their efforts to protect albinos, including launching a judicial inquiry and offering cash rewards for information about the abductions and killings

Similar cases of albino killings have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa alone.   There is also a lucrative black market trade in albino body parts, both in Africa and internationally.

For more information

Surviving the Lobotomy

Howard Dully was only twelve years old when he underwent a lobotomy that would change his life.

"I didn't realize how barbaric it was until later in my life," he would relate in a 2008 media interview.  "As a kid, it didn't really matter to me."    When his father and stepmother first took him to  a San Jose hospital in 1960, he had no idea that any surgery had been arranged.   All that he was told was that he would be having tests relating to the behaviour problems he was having at home.  Instead, the surgeon he saw, Dr. Walter Freeman, carried out a transorbital lobotomy  (often referred to as an "icepick lobotomy)."   Succinctly stated, the procedure involved forcing a long surgical instrument (which did rather resemble an ice-pick) through the tops of both eye sockets.   The surgeon would then twirl the instrument to transect the white fibrous matter connecting the cortical tissue of the prefrontal cortex to the thalamus.   The end result, at least in theory, was that the surgical procedure would eliminate or greatly reduce a patient's risk of violent or inappropriate behaviour as well as making that patient much more manageable afterward.  

What was really remarkable about Howard's case was the fact that much of the information that led Freeman to carry out the lobotomy came, not from other medical doctors, but from the boy's father and stepmother.   By all accounts, Howard had been a normal boy until his mother's death from cancer when he was five years old.    It was his father's remarriage that caused their family relationship to go downhill, largely due to the animosity that developed between Howard and his stepmother.   As Howard himself would later report, "Oh, I hated her.   I didn't want any harm to come to her.  Physical harm.  It was more of a mental game.  She'd tell me to go to my room and I'd mutter under my breath.  She alway said that I had a look that would scare her."   

He also said that punishment for breaking his stepmother's rules were harsh.  His stepmother had strict rules in place and she would automatically blame him if those rules were broken.  This frequently meant repeated spankings, both from his father and from his stepmother.  Her exact reasons for singling Howard out aren't clear but likely related to his large size (he reached an adult height of six feet, seven inches), rambunctious nature, and his early hostility towards her for taking his mother's place.   Whatever the reasons, their relationship was always poor and it was the stepmother who first approached Dr. Freeman about her problem stepson, apparently based on a newspaper article she had read.

Freeman's own case notes on Howard help document what can only be viewed today as a  horrendous lapse of medical ethics and parental judgment.    In one note from November 30, 1960 (which also happened to be Howard's birthday),  Freeman wrote:  "Mrs. Dully  came in for a talk about Howard.  Things have gotten much worse and she can barely endure it.  Howard does sneaky little things, pinching and sticking pins in his little brother - and always seems to have the idea that everyone is against him.  I explained to Mrs. Dully that the family should consider the possibility of changing Howard's personality by means of transorbital lobotomy.  Mrs. Dully said it was up to her husband and that I would have to talk with him and make it stick."

When Portuguese physician Dr. Egas Moniz introduced the the lobotomy procedure in 1936, it was immediately hailed as a miracle cure for the countless psychiatric patients crowding hospitals around the world (and also earned Moniz the Nobel Prize in medicine).   Though skeptics at the time expressed misgivings about the effect that lobotomies had on many of the patients receiving operations, this hardly deterred the demand for the operation across North America and Europe.   By pioneering his own, much less invasive, transorbital lobotomy technique in the early 1940s, Walter Freeman became one of the most well-known doctors in the United States (Howard Dully would later refer to him as the "Henry Ford of psychosurgery").   Over the course of Freeman's career, he would conduct thousands of lobotomies to "cure" a wide range of conditions ranging from schizophrenia to homosexuality.

By 1960, however, medical opinion had already turned against the use of lobotomies as a form of psychiatric treatment.  Not only were medications cheaper and less invasive, but they were far safer for patients and avoided the "zombie-like" condition observed in many of Freeman's lobotomy cases.  As a result, the embattled Freeman faced increasing pressure to prove that his life's work hadn't been in vain.   When Howard's parents approached him, he certainly must have been aware of less radical alternatives for treating Howard, including psychotherapy and medication.  Instead, he agreed to do the the lobotomy on Howard, just as he had done for thousands of other patients. 

After the lobotomy, things hardly improved at home.   Howard never returned to school and eventually became a ward of the state (largely at his stepmother's urging).    After drifting through the foster system, Howard turned to petty crime with numerous terms in juvenile facilities and halfway houses.   Since he never felt welcome in his parents' house, he eventually terminated all contact with his family and largely drifted for years before finally straightening out his own life.   Despite the gaps in his memory left by the lobotomy, he eventually went on to earn a two-year degree, got married, and became steadily employed driving a tour bus. 

But the memory of the operation he had received as a child remained with him and he  finally began seeking real answers.    As he describes in a gripping radio documentary  which came out on National Public Radio in 2005,  his search for answers was spurred by his stepmother's death in 2000.  Though he had shared the story of his lobotomy with close friends and his wife, he had mainly treated it as a deep secret that he was reluctant to reveal publicly. 

Since his stepmother's death meant that he would no longer be able to get answers he wanted from her, he began to do his own research.   Beginning with online searches, he was eventually put in contact with radio producer David Isay who co-produced the documentary.   Isay had  a longstanding interest in psychiatric survivors and regarded Dully's story as being especially compelling.   Their joint search for answers would lead  to the discovery of Howard's medical file among Walter Freeman's archived papers (Freeman had died in 1972).     "My file has everything - a photo of me with icepicks in my eyes, medical bills, "  he said in the documentary.  "But all I care about are the notes.  I want to understand why this was done to me."  Ironically enough, the archives also contained the very leucotomes that had been driven into his eye sockets for the lobotomy, a grim reminder of the long-ago surgery.

The 22-minute documentary was narrated by Howard himself.   Though initially reluctant to provide his name, he decided to tell the entire story, including many of the details obtained from Freeman's file.   The documentary also included an on-air interview between Howard Dully and his father (his stepmother had died in 1970).   Dully's father refused to take any blame for the operation and insisted on regarding himself as a victim over having his life exposed on the air.  While the documentary and the 2008 book, , My Lobotomy: A Memoir, which followed provided Dully a measure of peace, he recognizes that there are some questions  about his ordeal that would never really be answered.

Though Howard Dully's lobotomy didn't appear to have any long-term consequences aside from permanent gaps in his memory, many other lobotomy patients weren't so fortunate.  Thousands of these patients, including such famous cases as Rosemary Kennedy, were often left completely incapable of caring for themselves and spent the rest of their lives in institutions.  That Howard Dully survived represents an inspiring testimonial to his resilience.  But it's also a chilling reminder of the legacy left behind by a medical procedure once hailed as a miracle cure. 

Wielding a Hatchet

Long before the coming of Prohibition in 1920, there was the temperance movement.

Taking its name from the Greek writer Xenophon's definition of temperance as "moderation from all things healthful; abstinence from all things harmful", temperance groups in Europe and North America actively crusaded for a range of moral causes, including the banning of alcohol.  Linking "demon rum" to numerous social evils, including domestic violence, many temperance activists were also active suffragettes and encouraged women to become more involved in politics.   Although religious figures always regarded alcohol with suspicion due to its perceived role in inspiring immoral behaviour, it was only during the early 19th century that  the formal temperance movement began.    First originating in the United Kingdom and spreading throughout the British Empire (Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand all began temperance crusades at about the same time), the United States quickly jumped on the bandwagon.

In the United States, the largest temperance group was the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) .  Formed in 1873, the WCTU crusaded for the passage of legislation to reinforce Christian ideals of sobriety and morality.  Although their greatest victory still lay in the future with the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1920 and the banning of alcohol sales across the United States, the WCTU was  feared by saloon owners and alcohol distilleries alike due to their abstinence crusade.   The temperance movement became especially strong in the decades following the U.S. Civil War and advocates such as Neal Dow, Francis Willard and Matilda Carse became national figures.   The tactics advocated by the WCTU and other temperance groups were relatively peaceful and primarily focused on encouraging legislators to pass stronger anti-alcohol legislation.   Considering the lack of progress and general apathy that temperance workers faced, it isn't surprising that there would be calls for far stronger measures.

Which brings us to Carry Nation...

Born in 1846 to a family of prosperous slave owners, Carry Amelia Moore (her name was often spelled Carrie) had a difficult childhood.  Along with her various health issues, her family also had  financial problems that forced her parents to move repeatedly during her early life.   There was also a family history of mental illness on her mother's side of the family.  Not only did her maternal grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousin suffer from psychiatric problems (possibly dementia) but her mother was prone to intermittent delusions of being Queen Victoria (and eventually spent the last three years of her life in the Missouri State Hospital for the Insane).   Carry's primary refuge during her mother's psychotic episodes was the family slave quarters.  

During the Civil War, Carry's life was disrupted even further as her family was forced to evacuate to Kansas.   In 1865, she married her first husband, Dr. Charles Gloyd, who was a severe alcoholic.  Despite her best efforts, Carry was unable to prevent her husband from eventually drinking himself to death.    Carry eventually managed to recover from this loss and move on but losing a husband to alcohol would have a profound effect on the rest of her life.   After remarrying in 1874 and several failed business ventures later, Carrie and her second husband, David Nation, relocated back to Medicine Lodge in Kansas where she operated a hotel while her husband became a preacher.   Still stung by her experience with her first husband, Carrie founded a local branch of the WCTU and campaigned for a legal ban on the sale of liquor.   

Her protest methods were fairly direct but not nearly as unconventional as they would later become.    Not only did she organize protest marches, she also regularly serenaded saloon patrons with hymns accompanied by a hand organ and denounced saloon keepers as "destroyers of men's souls".   While the WCTU succeeded in closing down all but one saloon (one stubborn drugstore owner refused to cave in), Carry wasn't satisfied.   Being a devout Christian, she regularly prayed for guidance and, on June 5, 1889, she received what she believed to be her answer.   Inspired by a vision, she grabbed a sledgehammer, marched into the drugstore, and smashed a keg of whiskey.  The terrified drugstore owner closed up shop and left town.

But Carry Nation wasn't done yet.   As she would later describe in her autobiography,  "the next morning I was awakened by a voice which seemed to me speaking in my heart, these words, "GO TO KIOWA," and my hands were lifted and thrown down and the words, "I'LL STAND BY YOU." The words, "Go to Kiowa," were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low and soft, but "I'll stand by you," was very clear, positive and emphatic".  Carrie left her family and business and began her crusade in Kiowa, Kansas with a prosperous saloon run by Jasper Dobson.    After gathering rocks, she announced to the saloon's patrons that she had "come to save you from a drunkard's fate".  She then proceeded to smash all of the saloon's stock and went on to do the same at two other nearby saloons.    After a tornado struck eastern Kansas, Carrie took it as a sign of divine approval.   When her husband jokingly suggested that she should have used a hatchet instead, Carrie was inspired.   She bought a hatchet in Medicine Lodge and the Great "Hatchetation Tour" was on. 

And what a tour it was!

Over the course of the next few years, Carry Nation became a familiar sight with her hatchet brigade.  Alone or with many of her followers, Carry would march into saloons bearing her familiar hatchet and smash whatever stock she could find.   She also began a nationwide lecture tour to raise money to cover her legal costs (due to her repeated arrests and the fines that her various "hatchetations" incurred).  Very much into marketing and branding, she took to spelling her name as "Carry A. Nation" (and even applied for a copyright) and sold souvenir hatchets.  Her husband divorced her in 1901 but Carrie continued her crusade.    Despite leaving her life and family behind, she showed not the slightest hesitation that she was following God's will and even described herself as a "bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like".  Public opinion was divided on Carry and her mission and newspaper editorials ran the gamut from critical (one editor described her as being "crazy as a bedbug") to adoring.   Saloons across the country often closed up as she approached rather than let Carry Nation anywhere near their businesses.  The sight of tall, husky Carry waving her trademark hatchet terrified many a saloon keeper and signs with the slogan "All nations welcome but Carrie" became common in many bars.

Perhaps inevitably, her crusade began to flag as Carry ran out of money to keep it going.  Despite some financial support from prominent temperance supporters and her regular lecture tours, the costs of the various fines that she incurred began to add up.    She even joined the vaudeville circuit and toured music halls across the United States and Great Britain.  Her proselytizing didn't go over so well with her audiences and she wasn't able to raise enough money to keep going  When someone in the audience threw an egg at her at a lecture in 1909, Carry returned home.  After eventulaly settling in Eureka Springs, Arkansas (and a new house she titled Hatchet Hall),  Carry Nation's failing health didn't stop her from crusading whenever she could.  Finally collapsing during a speech, she was taken to a hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas where she died on June 9, 1911.    The WCTU later erected a marker on her grave in Belton, Missouri and her old Medicine Lodge home was declared a National Landmark in 1976. 

Despite her very public campaigning on behalf of temperance, there is little evidence that Carry's  Nation was particularly effective in promoting the cause.   The WCTU never officially sanctioned Carry's hatchetations and their quiet campaigning seemed far more preferable to Carry's vandalism.  There was also the question of her mental status.   Although she was frequently dismissed as insane by her critics, there seems little evidence that the divine inspiration that she claimed, complete with hearing voices, was anything more than good showmanship on her part.    Although he never examined her himself,  psychiatrist Karl Menninger considered her to be perfectly sane and viewed her antics as being a reasoned response to a real social problem. 

Whatever her motivation, Carry Nation remains controversial and the WCTU that she helped foster still continues today.  Although losing much of its appeal with the abolition of Prohibition in 1933, the WCTU maintains its opposition to a range of perceived social evils (including abortion and same-sex marriage).  

Carry Nation would be proud.

Psychiatric "Torture" Alleged in Civil Suit Against Two Oak Ridge Psychiatrists

Decades after being discharged from a maximum-security psychiatric facility in northern Ontario, more than two dozen former patients are suing two doctors and the province of Ontario for more than $25 million in damages.   

All of the defendants had been involuntary patients at a special therapy unit at the Oak Ridge facility near Penetanguishene, Ontario between 1965 and 1973.   Their attorney, Joel Rochon, singled out the two psychiatrists in charge, Elliott Barker and Gary Maier, of conducting "reckless human experimentation" on the patients under their care.    This allegedly included use of forcible restraints, mind-altering drugs, and punishment cells in which many patients were kept nude and shackled to other patients.    The former patients allege that their treatment left them with long-term psychological damage.

A previous court decision from 2017 had already concluded that the psychiatric treatment received by the patients was unethical and degrading though the judge confirmed that the doctors did not act out of cruelty or malice.  That ruling has already influenced nationwide standards for the use of solitary confinement in prisons and psychiatric hospitals. 

In his opening statement to Superior Court judge Edward Morgan, Rochon accused the two psychiatrists of violating their patients' basic human rights in violation of international protocols.   He also referred to the treatment they received as being tantamount to torture which resembled the experimentation Nazis performed on Jews.  "In the end, there is nothing medically or scientifically valid about these programs," Rochon said.   Though the doctors and the province denied any wrongdoing and insisted that the treatment was consistent with the medical science of that time,  Rochon maintains that the abuse occurred because Drs. Barker and Maier regarded the patients as "throwaway people" rejected by society.

While this case has been twenty years in the making, former patients have long  condemned the treatment they received at Oak Ridge, including allegations of  sensory and sleep deprivation as well as frequent use of solitary confinement.  They also reported being forced to take powerful hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD and forced to sit motionless on concrete floors for hours.  In addition to physical abuse from hospital attendants, patients accuse the doctors of recruiting other patients to help break down those they regarded as problematic.

Much of the case against the doctors and the province focuses on the issue of informed consent and the use of coercion to force patients to comply.  "The patients were absolutely dependent on the doctors and staff of Oak Ridge for their release," Rochon said. "There was no exit unless they did exactly what the doctors wanted."   

During the 2017 trial, evidence against Dr. Barker was provided by a paper he wrote in 1968 in which he stated that "if our patients did not choose to deviate from society's norms, but rather were driven to such deviations by internal unresolved conflicts, then we should help them to resolve such conflicts by every means at our disposal, including force, humiliation and deprivation, if necessary."   Similar evidence is expected during the course of the  trial and  many of the surviving patients are also expected to give testimony describing their experiences at the therapy unit.     

The trial is expected to run for six weeks and is likely to involve testimony from expect witnesses from both sides deliberating on the limits of psychiatric practice.

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The Mystery of Ettore Majorana

There are several categories of scientists in the world; those of second or third rank do their best but never get very far. Then there is the first rank, those who make important discoveries, fundamental to scientific progress. But then there are the geniuses, like Galilei and Newton. Majorana was one of these.   (Enrico Fermi,  1938)

In March, 1938, Sicilian physicist Ettore Majorana wrote two letters.  One of these letters was addressed to his family while the other was addressed to a friend, Antonio Carrelli , who was Director of the Naples Physics Institute at the time.  In both of these letters, he announced his plan to commit suicide on March 28 at 11 pm by throwing himself from the Naples-Palermo mail boat.  In his letter to Carelli, he simply stated that "I made a decision that has become unavoidable. There isn't a bit of selfishness in it, but I realize what trouble my sudden disappearance will cause you and the students. For this as well, I beg your forgiveness, but especially for betraying the trust, the sincere friendship and the sympathy you gave me over the past months."   Though he later sent a telegram announcing that he had changed his mind,  Majorana still boarded the boat to Naples and promptly disappeared.   

Given Ettore Majorana's prominence as one of Italy's leading scientists, police quickly investigated but faced considerable pressure from Mussolini's Fascist government to close the case as quickly as possible.   No body was ever found but police relied on the two letters Majorana had written to conclude that he had simply committed suicide.    This still raised awkward questions however, including the question of how anyone could have jumped off the boat without being seen or what could have happened to the body. 

And then there were the tantalizing clues that Majorana might have faked his death, including reported sightings of a man who resembled the missing scientist in Naples,   According to the Jesuit superior at a Naples church, a man he later identified as Majorana from photographs had visited the church just weeks after Majorana's disappearance.   The man had reportedly asked about entering a religious order so that he could "test his vocation."   While the superior told him to come back later to see if he still had  a religious vocation, the unnamed man never returned.    But speculations about Majorana's final fate would hardly end there.

So, who was Ettore Majorana and why the general public have so much trouble accepting the official suicide verdict?   To understand that, you'd have to understand how important Majorana was in the world of science.    Born in 1906 in Catania, Sicily, Majorana was a gifted student who decided to become a physicist like his eminent uncle.   Though he began university in 1921,  he began attending lectures in the National Institute of Physics and soon became one of Enrico Fermi's "Via Panisperna boys" (the name was taken from the address of Fermi's laboratory).    

Even among his brilliant classmates, Majorana stood out.   Though he was later described as "a slight young man with a shy, almost hesitant gait", he often astonished the class with his ability to do complex calculations in his head that his poor professor was forced to solve with a slide rule.  He soon became one of Enrico Fermi's star students and accrued numerous honours from his work on atomic spectography.

After receiving his doctorate at the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1928 at the age of twenty-three, he continued to distinguish himself with a steady stream of new discoveries.   It was Majorana who first proposed the existence of neutrons though he neglected to publish his ideas  (James Chadwick would later win a Nobel Prize for discovering the neutron not long afterward).   He also extended much of Enrico Fermi's work into atomic structure and made several key discoveries in mathematics as well.

Despite his work, Majorana was largely unknown outside his country since all of his papers were published in Italian.   To rectify this, Enrico Fermi eventually urged Majorana to take up a position in Leipzig, Germany in 1933.  It was there that he met Werner Heisenberg who soon became a second mentor after Fermi.   Majorana also traveled to Copenhagen to work with Niels Bohr but his failing health soon caught up with him.   That same year, he returned to Italy to recover from nervous exhaustion.   It likely didn't help that the political situation was becoming much bleaker across Europe.  Not only had Hitler come to power in Germany but Mussolini's Fascists had a firm control over Italy's universities as well.   

Following his return, Majorana underwent a serious personality change.   The once open and friendly young physicist had become increasingly hostile to family and friends and largely shut himself off from just about everybody that he knew.  Along with becoming a hermit, much of his work in nuclear physics dried up and he only published a few papers in related fields such as electrical engineering and mathematics.  As well, he stopped visiting Fermi's laboratory, something that distressed the great scientist greatly.

Despite his hermit status, Majorana's scientific reputation was strong enough for him to be made a full professor of theoretical physics at the University of Naples in 1937.  This was despite the lack of a formal competition or any of the other requirements normally expected of academics seeking a new position.   His disappearance took place in the following year.

So, what really happened to Ettore Majorana?   Certainly, his family and many of the people who knew him refused to accept that he had committed suicide and the troubling lack of a body helped feed speculation that he had faked his death.  In fact, Majorana's disappearance became one of the great mysteries of Italy's recent history.  Along with suggestions that he had fled to Argentina and eventually died there in the 1950s, it was also suggested that he had joined a monastery somewhere to live out the rest of his life anonymously.   

The most appealing of these theories focused on his work in nuclear physics.   While this work was relatively unknown to the public at the time,  the outbreak of World War II and the role that atomic bombs would play in ending that war helped inspire various lurid speculations, including that Majorana was kidnapped to force him to build an atomic bomb (and presumably killed afterward).   Another possibility was raised by writer Leonardo Sciascia in a 1975 book, The Mystery of Majorana, that the great physicist had faked his death to avoid being forced into nuclear research or, given his early brilliance, had already determined that nuclear weapons were possible and had joined a monastery to keep the world safe. 

Ettore Majorana's case was finally reopened in 2011 based on testimony that Majorana had been seen in Argentina following the war.   After a lengthy investigation, including careful analysis of photographs from that time, concluded that he had been alive as recently as 1959 though no clues to his ultimate fate were ever found.   In any event, there was no indication that he had been kidnapped and that his exile was probably voluntary.  

Whatever the reasons for this bizarre disappearance, Ettore Majorana's legacy, both in physics and as an enduring mystery, remains strong.   The Ettore Majorana Foundation and Center for Scientific Culture was founded in Erice, Sicily in 1962 and continues to provide scientific outreach for scientists and the public worldwide.  The Majorana equation and Majorana fermions are named after him and, in 2006,  the centenary of Majorana's birth, the Majorana Prize was established to recognize outstanding contributions to theoretical and mathematical physics.

 

 

Distracted Driving and Cellphones: What Are The Risks?

How dangerous is it to take your eyes off the road while distracted by a cellphone?    As it happens, the answer to that question is: "very," and it's a problem that doesn't seem to have a clear solution, especially among young drivers.

Even before the rise of modern telecommunications, distracted driving has always been a major cause of automobile accidents.   Usually defined as "shift in driver concentration toward a secondary task, leading to a deviation of attention from driving."  The kind of distractions that can impact on safe driving are usually divided into three main categories:  

• visual distractions which can cause drivers to take their eyes off the road for any reason.  Whether it involves turning your head to look at a passenger or a street sign, reading the name of a song on the on the audio system display sign, or even checking the cellphone sitting next to you in the car, all it takes is a second of distraction to cause an accident.  
• manual distractions which lead drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel.  Adjusting the radio, opening the glove compartment to find some needed item, or picking up a cellphone are all examples of manual distractions.
• cognitive distractions can occur whenever a driver is no longer focused on the primary task of driving.   This can result from drowsiness, being preoccupied by an upcoming meeting, or thinking about what you're having for dinner.   

Whatever the cause of the distraction, the consequences for drivers can be serious.   Not only do distracted drivers have reduced reaction times, but they are also less aware of what is around them, including traffic signs, other cars, or pedestrians about to cross in front of them.  According a 2006 research study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an estimated 78 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes in the United States were due to distracted driving.    More recent studies showed that one out of every six fatal crashes in the United States could be linked to distracted driving. 

You probably won't be too surprised to learn that cellphone use has become a major contributor to distracted driving in recent years.  Not only are cellphones virtually universal, but drivers have learned to depend on them for GPS navigation,  appointment reminders, or to communicate with friends and family while driving.   It is largely because of this cellphone dependence that many auto makers have incorporated Bluetooth technology into the latest cars to provide hands-free use.  Unfortunately, this led many drivers to assume that the hands-free option eliminated the risk of distracted driving (it doesn't).   

But it is probably the popularity of texting that has caused the greatest problems for drivers.    The manual, visual, and cognitive distractions resulting from texting while driving has been shown to increase the likelihood of crashing by up to 23 percent according to one 2010 study.    Still, despite most drivers being well aware of the potential dangers of cellphone use when driving, this awareness doesn't seem to have much impact on actual driving behaviour.  Something that seems to be especially true for younger drivers who have been found to account for 21 percent of all texting and driving related crashes.  

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.