Schizophrenia is a highly complex and yet particularly prevalent neuropsychiatric illness. It is a chronic disease in which the senses of reality, thoughts, and perception are distorted to varying degrees. Although most people associate mind disorders with the poor and homeless, this psychotic disorder is non-discriminatory; it affects approximately 1% of the global population, with no partiality to sex, race, culture, socioeconomic status, or geographic location. Due to of its cross-culture consistencies and because of its hereditary disposition, schizophrenia appears to have a genetic component associated with it. However, a person who is genetically predispositioned to the disorder may never become afflicted with the disease because environmental factors did not precipitate it. External factors may incite the activation of the "schizophrenic gene", therefore causing the disorder to manifestation itself. Certain illegal drugs, such as amphetamines and cannabis, may be the provoker needed for this life-long disease to reveal itself in people who have inherited a genetic predisposition to the disorder. After one is inflicted with this illness, it can be treated with antipsychotic drugs to help stabilize the condition; sadly however, there is no cure for this common psychotic illness.
History of Schizophrenia.
The genetic factor associated with this psychosis indicates that it has accompanied mankind throughout history; however, the term "schizophrenia" was first used less than a hundred years ago by a man named Eugene Bleuler. Ancient writings dating back thousands of years give descriptions of people with schizophrenic-like symptoms, but before psychoses were understood, this mind-illness was thought to be caused by an imbalance of the humours or God punishing the afflicted person for a transgression. With the advances in psychoanalysis and genetics, we now that this is not the case, and are better suited to treat the illness.
