50 Years ago

Mental illness is so disturbing and unexpected that it is inevitable that it should arouse an emotional response...The earliest historical reaction seems to have been the view that insanity was due to possession by devils... It may be that the trephining operation in which palaeolithic man removed, with what pain we cannot conceive, sections of a living man's skull, was designed to let out the devils which had somehow become lodged in the head. The next stage in such a belief was that the patient had suffered from a divine intervention. He was 'touched' by God... However, a certain number of mentally ill patients...are definitely dangerous, and many are a nuisance, interfering with the lives and work of ordinary folk... Indeed, in Biblical times, insane people were sometimes chained in caves and dependent on charity for their food, or died if it were not provided. In 1792 Pinel commenced the modern era by removing the patients' shackles in France... From this time, physicians tried to treat their patients.

From Nature 10 August 1957.

100 Years ago

The fuels committee of the Motor Union of Great Britain and Ireland has issued a valuable report on motor-car fuels... a famine in petrol appears to be inevitable in the near future, owing to the fact that demand is increasing at a rate much greater than the rate of increase of the supply. In 1904 the consumption of petrol in the United Kingdom was 12,000,000 gallons; in 1907 it had risen to 27,000,000 gallons... the committee discusses in the report other possible fuels. The supply is divided into two parts. The first includes all fuels limited in quantity...The second group contains one item only — alcohol — and it is evident from the whole tone of the report that the committee expects to find in denatured vegetable spirits the fuel of the future.

From Nature 8 August 1907.