Introduction

In the late 1950s, the first American children were diagnosed with hyperactivity. They would not be the last. By 2006, the National Institute of Mental Health conservatively estimated that two million American children were afflicted with hyperactivity or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a disorder characterized by hyperactive, inattentive, impulsive, defiant and aggressive behaviour. During the last five decades, these children have represented a major portion of the patients seen by American paediatricians, child psychiatrists and general practitioners, have been the subject of thousands of medical articles, textbooks and self-help manuals and have contributed significantly to the profits of pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis through sales of hyperactivity drugs such as Ritalin. Hyperactivity has also become a cultural phenomenon, identified with cartoon characters such as Dennis the Menace, Calvin (from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip) and Bart Simpson, and a topic featured in television shows ranging from The Simpsons to The Sopranos.

The presiding opinion of most paediatricians, psychiatrists and other physicians that hyperactivity is merely a neurological condition fails to shed light on why educators, politicians and physicians during the late 1950s increasingly believed that hyperactive and distractible behaviour was pathological and warranted medical attention.