Western Culture Global Presents

The Top 100 Heroes of Western Culture
These individuals have most contributed to replacing ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization, disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty with abundance, and despair with happiness.



#71: Phillipe Pinel (1745-1826)

Phillipe Pinel (1745-1826) was a French physician who can be considered a father of psychiatry.

Throughout history, mental illness was viewed as a realm of the supernatural, in which demoniacal possession was believed to be the cause of insanity.

Pinel dispensed with mystical explanations and brought reason to the field of mental illness. In other words, he properly regarded mental illness to have a rational explanation that can be identified through observation and logic.

While many of his conclusions were in error, his introducing reason and science to the issue of mental disorders would allow the opportunity for an effective and proper psychologically based treatment.



Go to #72: Willis Haviland Carrier


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