First Documented Paranoid Schizophrenic, c.1800

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"Air-loom machine" drawn by James Tilly Matthews (1770-1815). Matthews was a London tea broker, originally from Wales and of Huguenot descent, who was committed to Bethlem (colloquially Bedlam) psychiatric hospital in 1797. His case is considered to be the first documented one of paranoid schizophrenia. In 1810 John Haslam produced the book "Illustrations of Madness"; his book contains verbatim accounts of Matthew's beliefs and hallucinatory experiences and is considered the original description of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. The book documented the first full study of a single psychiatric patient in medical history and has become a classic in the medical literature. Matthews believed that a gang of criminals and spies skilled in pneumatic chemistry had taken up residence at London Wall in Moorfields (close to Bethlem) and were tormenting him by means of rays emitted by a machine called the "Air Loom."

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