I have been reading "Journey Through Genius" by William Dunham and a disturbing thought occurred to me while reading about Archimedes. Arguably the greatest mathematician of all time, Archimedes would become so absorbed in a problem that he wouldn't eat or sleep for days. His family would have to drag him kicking and screaming from his work to bathe and nourish himself.
This is not the only example of madness in this book. Many of the greatest mathematical minds of all time were what we would today diagnose as OCD, ADHD, Autistic, etc. In their time these individuals were allowed to live out their existence as they were biologically or naturally programmed to behave. Through the course of living their reality, they were able to develop and discover mathematics far beyond the current mathematical thinking of the day.
Here is my concern, if we insist on judging individuals who behave differently than we deem "normal" as having a disorder that must be "cured" (ie. drugged) are we in fact suppressing some of the greatest thinkers of our time?
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