A Man Against Insanity: The Birth of Drug Therapy in a Rural Michigan Asylum In 1952

A MAN AGAINST INSANITY describes the remarkable life and career of Dr. John (Jack) Ferguson, a man who began his medical career late in life with the simple goal of becoming a simple country doctor. But Dr. Ferguson was anything but a simple man, and this book provides an insightful description of a tumultuous early life that led to a relentless pursuit of goals motivated by an insatiable need for approval. Despite repeated financial set- backs, a divorce, a heart attack, a barbiturate addiction and several psychiatric hospitalizations, Ferguson persevered and eventually graduated medical school 20 years after he first enrolled. He then realized his dream when he was hired as the town doctor in a small, rural community. The dream didn't last: after only one year, he abruptly abandoned his position and collapsed into a fog of psychosis with grandiose delusions, delusions that led to an attempt to poison his wife and kill himself. Over the next 13 months, Ferguson would be hospitalized three times as a barbiturate psychotic, finally emerging as a "new man." Humbled and compassionate, Fer- guson credited supportive psychotherapy and the warmth of the hospital attendants with helping him find a new direction for life-to serve psychiatric patients.