20
address him, for he obviously was a Shaker... I received as
answer an inarticulate babbling and growling. To be sure, it
didn't sound malicious, but it didn't have much of human quality
to it. In this embarrassment, I had to regard almost as a rescue
from distress the appearance of a friendly old man in Shaker
costume who stepped forth from the door of the mentioned main
building and inquired as to my wishes..."


CONCLUSIONS

Now that we have listed all the cases of mental illness that are
documented in Shaker journals, let us reconsider the types of
illness indicated.

The mental disorder which a good many of the Shakers seems to
have had is what today is called schizophrenia. A recent book*
says this seems to be the most prevalent of all mental disorders
and remains a baffling problem to clinicians. The estimates for
those suffering from this disease range from about 2% of the
general population (diagnosed, but not including those unknown)

*GENDER AND DISORDERED BEHAVIOR: Differences in Psychopathology
Edited by Edith S. Gomberg & Violet Franks, 1979

to about 6% in urban slums. It remains difficult to treat, there
is no consensus as to its diagnosis, and no two schizophrenics
are alike. Some of the symptoms which can be present are:
bizarre behavior, obsessional thinking, bizarre body sensations,
hallucinations, delusions, grimacing, loss of motivation, with-
drawal into a subjectived world, paranoia, occasional violence,
and communication and language difficulties. It is the behavior
of the individual which draws attention: unconventional dress,
unpredictability as to social conventions, oddness, eccentricity
in behavior, inappropriate or peculiar response to people, andn
may include self-doubts about competence.

And while it isn't classified as "inherited", there certainly
seems to be a "genetic predisposition" since schizophrenic
parents have a 10-16% of producing schizophrenic children; when
both parents are schizophrenic, this goes up to 35-55%. This may
be due to pregnancy and birth complications, more frequent sepa-
rations from the mother, or more mentally ill fathers. However,
the studies showed that children reared by schizophrenic mothers
did not fare any moroe poorly and were perhaps even better off
than children raised in orphanages and foster homes. The
deciding factor seemed to be the length of time the child was in