Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness

by Harriet A. Washington

Overview

A groundbreaking look at the connection between germs and mental illness, and how we can protect ourselves.
Is it possible to catch autism or OCD the same way we catch the flu? Can a child's contact with cat litter lead to schizophrenia? In her eye-opening new book, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Harriet Washington reveals that we can in fact "catch" mental illness. In Infectious Madness, Washington presents the new germ theory, which posits not only that many instances of Alzheimer's, OCD, and schizophrenia are caused by viruses, prions, and bacteria, but also that with antibiotics, vaccinations, and other strategies, these cases can be easily prevented or treated.
Packed with cutting-edge research and tantalizing mysteries, Infectious Madness is rich in science, characters, and practical advice on how to protect yourself and your children from exposure to infectious threats that could sabotage your mental and physical health.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316277792
Publisher:	Little, Brown Spark
Publication date:	04/08/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	255
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Harriet A. Washington has been the Shearing Fellow at the University of Nevada's Black Mountain Institute, a Research Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University, and a visiting scholar at DePaul University College of Law.

She has held fellowships at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Stanford University. She is the author of A Terrible Thing to Waste, Deadly Monopolies, Infectious Madness, and Medical Apartheid, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Oakland Award, and the American Library Association Black Caucus Nonfiction Award.

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Chapter 1 Germ Theory Redux: The Acquisition of Mental Illness 9

Chapter 2 The Fetus as Battleground: Early Exposure and Psychiatric Fate 38

Chapter 3 Growing Pains: "Catching" Anorexia, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Tourette's 76

Chapter 4 Gut Feelings: The Brain in Your Belly 125

Chapter 5 Microbial Culture: Pathogens and the Shaping of Societies 158

Chapter 6 Winning at Evolutionary Chess: Strategies to Outwit Pathogens 192

Chapter 7 Tropical Madness: Infection and Neglect in the Developing World 225

Afterword 251

Acknowledgments 257

Notes 261

Index 289

Editorial Reviews

"Terrifying and comforting in equal measure. Infectious Madness will inspire healthy debate and...bold new strategies for prevention and treatment."——Priscilla Gilman, More Magazine

"A fascinating exploration of how common infections can affect mental illness."
—Shanda Deziel, Chatelaine

"Animpressive array of technical research is presented in a readable style in Infectious Madness."
—Library Journal

"It used to be obvious what caused mental illness—depravity, a rotten soul, being in cahoots with the Devil. Or maybe just terrible mothering. We've escaped this primordial muck of attribution, learning that mental illnesses are biological disorders, complete with chemical and structural abnormalities in the brain, and with risk factors ranging from genes, hormones and fetal life to socioeconomic status. This superb book reviews the novel realization that infectious pathogens, and the immune system's response to them, can be risk factors for mental illness as well. The book has a broad, exciting range, considering 'contagion' in both the reductive sense, as well as an in the expansive societal manner. This is fascinating material and Harriet Washington is a great writer — clear and accessible, witty, probing, and able to dissect the controversies in this field with great objectivity."
—Robert Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers

"Your views on the causes of mental illness will be forever altered when you read this profoundly humane and transformative book." —Carl Hart, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology, Columbia University

"Infectious Madness is a fascinating book about the role of infectious diseases in mental illness. Washington challenges us to expand our view of the causes, prevention, and treatment of emotional disorders. I highly recommend it!"
—Alvin F. Poussaint, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

"With Infectious Madness, Harriet Washington sounds a much-needed alarm — although not a welcome one. Turning old-fashioned germ theory inside out, she explains that we humans are the slow-moving interlopers in a world of microbes. And it's not just our health but our instincts, desires, feelings, and even our grasp on reality that are at stake."
——Philip Alcabes, Professor of Public Health, Adelphi University, author of Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to Avian Flu

"In Infectious Madness, Harriet Washington confirms her position as one of our most thought-provoking medical writers. Led by Washington on a whirlwind tour of early modern medicine in the 18th century, germ theory, Western anorexia, African sleeping sickness, schizophrenia, and everywhere else, we will forever be unable to think of our microbial environment in the same way. The same, for that matter, might be said of our view of the social environment in which the collective enterprise of medicine transpires."—Samuel Roberts, PhD, Director, Columbia University Institute for Research in African-American Studies, and Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

From the Publisher

2015-07-27
A pitch for infections as a major cause of mental illness, arguing for a paradigm shift from mainstream psychiatric doctrine. Journalist Washington (Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself—And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future, 2011, etc.) champions the work of E. Fuller Torrey and colleagues. As a young man, Torrey was appalled when his sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia attributed to "family problems." It was a time when "schizophrenogenic mothers" were all the fashion. Torrey became a psychiatrist and started his infection-oriented research. It's unquestionable that some severe mental illness is rooted in infections—e.g., syphilis, rabies, Sydenham's chorea, the World War I flu that led to encephalitis lethargica, and, more recently, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, and mad cow disease. However, Torrey and his colleagues see infectious causality in a much wider variety of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, bipolar disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, autism, and anorexia. The evidence is scant, largely based on association studies such as finding evidence of infections in blood or spinal fluid or a seasonal increase in some disorders that could be a sign of a viral infection. Furthermore, conjecture abounds. Do children really pick up the parasite Toxoplasma gondii from cat urine in park sandboxes and later develop schizophrenia? For all that infections are touted, researchers cite genetics, stress, and trauma as making a difference in whether disease will manifest. A better case is made regarding strep throat, after which a few children develop OCD seemingly overnight. In a small study, their symptoms were reversed when their blood was filtered to remove strep antibodies. In making the infectious pitch, Washington rightly argues that it strengthens the case for abandoning the Cartesian dualism that separates mind from body and leads to stigma and fear. It's acceptable to study how infection and immunity affect the brain, but only as part of a larger agenda to understand the brain in all its plasticity and complexity. Conclusion: an unproven but undoubtedly provocative case. Expect dissent and discussion.

Kirkus Reviews