psychoceramics: Mad inventors

[Andrew C Bulhak <a--@c--.monash.edu.au>]

An interesting article from the Daily Telegraph.

 -- acb

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/]
> [Image]                                          Electronic Telegraph
>             UK News
>             Monday 1 December 1997
>             [Image]                                          Issue 921
> 
> [See text menu at bottom of page]
> 
>  [Image]             You don't have to be mad to invent, but it helps
>                      By Celia Hall, Medical Editor
> 
>  ---------------      [Image] A SEARCH for the true nature of the mad
>  External Links               scientist has taken two forensic
>                      psychiatrists from a hospital's secure unit to the
>   [Image]The Mad     Patent Office and the British Library.
>          Scientist
>       Network -      Four of their patients began writing to the Patent
>       Washington     Office after becoming engrossed in their inventions: a
>       University     cure for cancer and Aids made from domestic products;
>       Medical        a time machine; an inflatable moon buggy and a method
>       School         for producing cold fusion in a test-tube.
> 
>                      Dr David James is consultant forensic psychiatrist at
>   [Image]Invention   the Camlet Lodge secure unit, Enfield, north London.
>          Dimension   He said: "When we saw what they were doing it raised
>       -              again questions about creativity and madness and it
>       Massachusetts  occurred to us that the Patents Office might be full
>       Institute of   of inventions coming out of mental illness."
>       Technology
>                      Dr James and Dr Paul Gilluley, his registrar, searched
>                      the files in the patent Office and British Library,
>  ------------------  but were unable to find evidence of inventors being
>                      mad. However, they did discover a lot of mad
>                      inventions - madder than the inventions their patients
>                      were working on.
> 
>                      Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry today,
>                      they describe the inventions they discovered from the
>                      100 "odd or eccentric" patents they identified. About
>                      half of them were "related to bodily functions". Of
>                      the others, time and animals were popular themes and
>                      one inventor in 1991 managed to combine both
>                      obsessions with a Watch for Keeping Time at a Rate
>                      Other than Human. It looks like an ordinary watch but
>                      keeps time at an animal's rate achieved by dividing
>                      the average of a specific animal's lifespan into the
>                      average lifetime of a human being.
> 
>                      Another time traveller invented the Life Expectancy
>                      Timepiece, a macabre instrument that counted to zero
>                      and monitored the approximate time the wearer had left
>                      to live. More helpful was the Baby Patting Machine, an
>                      infant sleeping aid that patted the baby's rump with a
>                      soft pad. Another domestic product is called the Cold
>                      Air Blast Wake-Up device, which operated under the
>                      bedclothes at a pre-set hour. Dr James also describes
>                      the patent for a Two-Handed Glove for sweethearts,
>                      complete with knitting instructions to facilitate
>                      hand-holding in cold climates.
> 
>                      In 1980 an animal lover came up with a kind of helmet
>                      so the ears of long-eared dogs could be kept out of
>                      their dinner. The psychiatrists say that 75 per cent
>                      of patents are "incoherent or obviously mad
>                      inventions" and conclude that madness does not produce
>                      creativity, although it might colour it.
> 
>                      Dr James said: "In other words the only creative 'mad
>                      scientists' are those that were creative before they
>                      came mentally ill. In fact I find the inventions of my
>                      patients very charming and stimulating. But you have
>                      to be creative to start with and have a lot of
>                      imagination."
> 
>                      11 November 1997: Patently important
>                      12 April 1997: Bush telegraph on weird gadgets
>                      17 December 1996: The future is electric [interview
>                      with Sir Clive Sinclair]
>                      8 March 1995: Inventors: Bright ideas up for sale
> 
> 
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