The strait-waistcoat; an early unrecognised form of collapse therapy.

Summary The belief that tuberculosis and insanity were incompatible arose in the middle of the eighteenth century pari passu with the widespread use of the strait-waistcoat in psychiatric practice, and disappeared with its disuse in the middle of the nineteenth century. Evidence is presented that this belief may have arisen from the pneumoperitoneum-like effect of the strait-waistcoat, which may thus have constituted an unrecognised form of collapse therapy.