Medical experimentation has been happening for more than seventy-five years in modern countries. We are aware of the experiments that occurred in Germany during WWII, but these were not the only times such experiments took place. After the war, many of the doctors that were guilty of medical travesties were brought to North America to continue their studies on human subjects. This is the story of one man and his family who became the system's victim.

Robert suffered for most of his life with the debilitating illness labelled "schizophrenia." His nightmare began while enlisted in the Air Force during World War II and continued throughout the 1950s when the worst of the treatments for this illness were devised: Insulin coma therapy, electroshock treatments, prolonged ice-cold baths, turpentine injections, LSD, sodium pentothal and other psychotropic drugs.

He was witty and intelligent with the ability to build complex electrical devices with nothing except what he could scavenge from the town dump and a few purchased tubes and knobs. He wrote poetry and built a keyboard piano from a sheet of glass. His Christmas lights flashed in rhythm to records playing on the phonograph turntable. He had many talents and gifts that were stolen from him because of the torturous treatments he endured while a patient in several mental hospitals in two provinces, one of which was the first workplace of Dr. Ewen Cameron of MK-ULTRA and CIA fame. Dr. Cameron went on to become one of the most infamous perpetrators of inhumane treatment toward the mentally ill.

This is the story of how Robert's family used music, laughter and escapism to co-exist in a tiny shack in the far north. It is an inspiration to anyone faced with similar family dynamics. There was no counselling available to this family, but they survived in spite of the obstacles they faced living with a father so incapacitated by mental and multiple physical disabilities.

Unfortunately, medical experimentation has never stopped even after "deinstitutionalization" and the release of mentally ill patients, often to the streets. This book contains lists of the horrific experiments that continue to this day under the misnamed banner of "health research."

EARLY REVIEWS

Informative, Well-written Memoir 5 stars
Chris Cennedy
This review is from: Delusions of Daddy
This book is a winner both in terms of a family coping with severe mental illness and by way of providing a historical summary of mental health treatment in the mid-century.

Excellent Book 5 stars
Melissa L. Bernier
This was a heartwarming account of a daughter's love for her father it took decades for her to understand. An excellent read.