Schizophrenia and civilization

This book will explore the relationship between schizophrenia and civilization. Although many people have assumed that schizophrenia has always been with us and exists universally at about the same prevalence rate, the evidence is to the contrary. In all ages and countries a few cases of schizophrenia have existed. These cases can be viewed as the baseline prevalence of the disease, and probably consist largely of organic diseases such as pellagra, trypanosomiasis, temporal lobe epilepsy, and brain tumors masquerading as the disease.... Beyond this baseline prevalence, however, there appear to be wide differences in the distribution of schizophrenia.