This is a series of notes made on David Cooper’s introduction to Michel Foucault’s famous text Madness and Civilisation. The construction of madness is a chimera running through many different ages and societies, and changing in form over time.  Now we face the chemical age, the age which superseded the use of straight jackets as restraints and destructive physical surgery to pacify people placed under the medical authority.  Indeed the modern medical models came from attempts to use pre-operation anesthetics to sedate patients as managed inmates. Read more…