But society offers prejudice. It's an old story. For centuries, everyone believed that matter making up life somehow differed from everything else. Then in 1828 Friedrich Wohler synthesized urea from inorganic cyanates, and urea is about as organic as it gets. Urea is exactly the same, whether made in the laboratory or produced by more natural processes.
Chemistry is chemistry, in the test tube, or the kidney, or the brain.
Biological organs, the brain included, are biochemical laboratories, and mental disorders are medical problems, striking the parts of the brain that control emotion, thought and speech. Resisting the Truth Society resists this realization, though, the way the church once refused to believe that the earth orbited the sun. For if society were to accept what science has to say about mental illness, it would understand the rationale for ignoring the biggest public health problem in America. Major depression, manic depression, panic disorder and schizophrenia are all serious illnesses, reflections of abnormal physiology no more under personal control than breathing or a heartbeat. Such diseases are chronic, often debilitating and frequently fatal.