Abstract

Through the examination of two case studies of research in biological psychiatry, general paresis of the insane and schizophrenia, this dissertation attempts the following tasks: To understand the relation of the research which led to the biological understanding of general paresis of the insane to the career of research in biological psychiatry since. The understanding of the cause of general paresis of the insane was the first big success of biological psychiatry, and swiftly became the model for research in the field. This fact is often noted, but the details of the modelling and the extent of its influence have not heretofore been examined. To use the comparison of research on general paresis of the insane and on schizophrenia as a means to organize a history of the search for biological causes of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia was first described as a distinct clinical syndrome at the turn of the century, and research has continued to the present without any conclusive results. The resulting jumble of methods, strategies and agendas is much easier to understand, and possibly also to adjudicate among, with a knowledge of where and when and why each arose. To begin an investigation of the character of the assumptions, expectations and methods characteristic of research in biological psychiatry. The case studies illustrate the importance of the general assumptions and predelictions of a field in shaping research, the important but often delayed influence of new technologies, the role of serendipitous discoveries in neighboring fields, and the advantages of theories which bring together several different research methodologies. Biological psychiatry's position as the "worst case" for scientific study, combining the complications inherent in all medical research with the difficulties of generalizing about behavior and emotions, also makes it a particularly good place for the examination of issues by philosophy of science that are not always as obvious, though not necessarily unimportant, in other fields, such as the influence of exemplary discoveries on the development of research programs, the problem of distinguishing description from explanation, and the reconception of phenomena in the course of their investigation