ABSTRACT
ROY PORTER, social historian extraordinaire (2003), suggests thatthere is a plague of ‘mental hypochondria’ in the world today. Certainly, madness seems to be proliferating, but are more people going mad, or is the prevalence of madness merely being recognised as hugely higher than the previously recorded incidence? If madness is at epidemic proportions, is it actually a bona fide medical condition or an interpretation of aspects of human performance that powerful groups in society deem deviant? If madness is a legitimate medical condition, does it stem from psychological and/or biological malfunction or from a mad society?
