Abstract
It is rare to find an aspect of human endeavour in which there has been a comparable level of conceptual stagnation for so long as we have seen in the nosology of psychotic disorders. During the late 19th century, German intellectuals dominated most fields of human activity. Since then their ideas have been complemented or superseded everywhere by contributions from other parts of the world, except in psychotic illness. Why? What is the basis for the tenacious grip the concept of dementia praecox has held on the minds of psychiatrists for over a century? Barrett, an anthropologist, psychiatrist, and now an archaelogist, takes us on a ‘dig’ of late 19th century thought to try to find an answer. These papers are extracted from part of his now classic study of the social construction of schizophrenia in a hospital setting, which has been published recently as a monograph [1].