In his outstanding review Schizophre- nia and Civilisation, Torrey1 makes a very strong case that this disorder is relatively new Indeed he presents convincing evidence that a major increase in the incidence of schizophrenia parallelled the onset of the Industrial Revolution. To cite him directly:

It was as if somebody rang a bell precisely at the turn of the nineteenth century to herald, the official entrance of schizophrenia, Whereas up to that point there appear to have been at best a few scattered cases in the literature, classical schizophrenia was suddenly being described by different people in different places all at about the same time. Such an entrance for a disease is rather dramatic. Almost from the first historical sug- gestions of schizophrenia, an accompanying . theme can be heard in the background: Insanity (and schizophrenia) were rapidly increasing. The persistence of this idea throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth is one of the most striking facets of the short history of schizophrenia.