→ Marginalia:
Five psychiatry textbooks, five different conceptions of where the field begins. Each revealed by a single choice: what to put first.
What do you think should come first – and why?
a) The patient
b) The encounter
c) The examination
d) The diagnosis
e) The brain
#Psychiatry
→ Marginalia:
Five psychiatry textbooks, five different conceptions of where the field begins. Each revealed by a single choice: what to put first.
What do you think should come first – and why?
a) The patient
b) The encounter
c) The examination
d) The diagnosis
e) The brain
#Psychiatry
Source for the main quotation
Wilson – “A Plan for Refining the Nosology of Mental Illness,” in Martin M. Katz, ed., The Role and Methodology of Classification in Psychiatry and Psychopathology (1965), p. 53.
Only the first editor is cited here.
Sources
DSM-II (1968) – acknowledgement page
Wilson obituary – Legacy.com (Washington Post notice)
Bayer – Homosexuality and American Psychiatry (1987), pp. 123–124
Wilson obituary – Columbia University Medical Center Archives
Archived at Perma.cc [https://perma.cc/9HBW-V44T]
Wilson also served on the APA’s Nomenclature Committee during the DSM-II era and drafted a discussion paper supporting the declassification of homosexuality from the diagnostic nomenclature. In 1986 he published a survival manual for medical students.
Paul T. Wilson (1932–2020) was a psychiatrist on the staff of the American Psychiatric Association during the preparation of DSM-II. The manual’s acknowledgement page credits him with “extensive editorial revision of the original manuscript” that clarified and added precision to its definitions.
No single part can advance far without similar growth in the other parts. And so the act of improving a nosology is inseparable from the other acts that help the profession to grow. — WILSON, PAUL T. (Washington, DC, 1965)
#Psychiatry #PsychShelf
– – –
Refining a nosology involves much more than just renaming illnesses from time to time. The nosological system of any healing profession is an integral part of its structure, tradition, philosophy, and practice. »
#Psychiatry #PsychShelf
– – –
Wilson also served on the APA’s Nomenclature Committee during the DSM-II era and drafted a discussion paper supporting the declassification of homosexuality from the diagnostic nomenclature. In 1986 he published a survival manual for medical students.
Paul T. Wilson (1932–2020) was a psychiatrist on the staff of the American Psychiatric Association during the preparation of DSM-II. The manual’s acknowledgement page credits him with “extensive editorial revision of the original manuscript” that clarified and added precision to its definitions.
#Psychiatry
#Psychopharmacology
[8/4] Sources 4 — California & Limerick:
Stahl – Essential Psychopharmacology (2nd ed.), cited in:
Jordan – ‘Running Low on Rocket Fuel’ (2019)
Meagher – ‘The case for Limerick “rocket fuel”’ (2006)
[7/4] Sources 3 — London:
Currie – ‘Treatment Resistant Depression Pharmacology’ (citing Hale et al., 1987)
Only source attesting to the name “London cocktail.”
[6/4] Sources 2 – Dalhousie:
Dursun – ‘Dalhousie Serotonin Cocktail’ (2001)
Bird – ‘Treatment-Resistant Depression’ (2002)
Chehil – ‘Pharmacologic management of refractory depression’ (2001)
[5/4] Sources 1 – Newcastle:
Barker – ‘The Newcastle Chronic Depression Study’ (1987)
McKeith – ‘Donald Eccleston’ (2018)
Gardner – ‘Competent Psychopharmacology’ (2014)
Ayd – Lexicon of Psychiatry (1995)
Formulations differ across sources; I follow the original trial.
[4/4]
This information is shared for general and historical purposes. It is not medical advice.
[3/4] Tiki edition …
California rocket fuel: venlafaxine, mirtazapine
Limerick rocket fuel: duloxetine, mirtazapine
The former has become a textbook staple.
The latter was proposed in a 2006 case report, but never caught on.
Any others I’m missing?
[2/4] A few combinations that earned names of their own …
Newcastle cocktail: phenelzine, L-tryptophan, lithium
Dalhousie cocktail: nefazodone, pindolol, L-tryptophan
London cocktail: clomipramine, L-tryptophan, lithium
[1/4] Cocktail Hour 🍸
The rule: cocktails and antidepressants don’t mix.
The exception: when the cocktail is pharmacologic.
P.S. It arrived.
[3/3] In 2026, psychiatric knowledge is more analog than we assume.
Important books aren’t digitized, aren’t translated, and can’t cross borders without workarounds.
The barriers aren’t intellectual. They’re logistical. Logistics shape what gets read.
#Psychiatry
#booksky
[2/3] All was going well until German customs intervened. Twice.
First, I entered too few decimal places on a customs form. My imprecision was impermissible. Shipment voided.
Then, the amount was right, but I submitted my invoice as a screenshot, not a PDF. Voided again.
[1/3] Book Route
The other week, I bought a Polish psychiatry book from a seller who wouldn’t ship to the US.
My only option was to set up a forwarding address in Germany. The seller ships to Germany; a forwarder reships to me.
It felt vaguely clandestine.
(Now it feels mundane.)
Sources:
Perales, A et al. (eds.) – Manual de Psiquiatría «Humberto Rotondo» (UNMSM, 2021)
Alarcón, R – Sketches of Peruvian psychiatry, Int Rev Psychiatry (2016)
Huarcaya-Victoria, J – An Fac Med (2016)
#Psychiatry #PsychShelf #booksky
The full sentence, in the original Spanish:
«La noción tradicional de enfermedad mental gira en una órbita elíptica en torno a dos grandes focos, la biología y la medicina, que han tenido un formidable desarrollo en el plano de la producción científica y en el de sus aplicaciones clínicas.»
The full sentence, in my translation:
"The traditional notion of mental illness revolves in an elliptical orbit around two great foci, biology and medicine, which have had a formidable development in the plane of scientific production and in that of their clinical applications."
Psychiatry is not placeless. It anchors in particular cities, particular institutions, particular languages. This metaphor is Lima’s.
The Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Valdizán, Delgado, Seguín, Rotondo, Hernández. Generations of psychiatrists, one tradition. Rooted in Lima. In dialogue with the psychiatric world.
The oldest university in the Americas. A faculty press named for a psychiatrist and one of its own. A century-old lineage. From that tradition, this metaphor.
The traditional notion of mental illness revolves in an elliptical orbit around two great foci, biology and medicine … — MANUAL OF PSYCHIATRY Hernández, Max (Lima, 2021)
