Stimulants and ADHD have become nearly synonymous in recent decades. The now common practice of prescribing stimulants to children has fueled the long-standing controversy surrounding the legitimacy of what is commonly known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).The need to medically justify stimulant use has sharpened the debate between those who argue for the disorder’s medical validity and those who describe the disorder as a social construction. Historical inquiry into ADHD has maintained this dichotomy, retroactively fusing psycho-stimulants and children, and reifiing rather than challenging a false choice between medical and constructivist explanations of the disorder. This dissertation reexamines the significance of psychostimulants to two doctors in their work with children. Charles Bradley and Leon Eisenberg have, in recent years, figured prominently in historical accounts of ADHD as pioneering advocates of psychopharmalogical treatment of children with hyperactive and inattentive children, in particular with stimulants. Scholars have selectively mined the published works of these two doctors to either validate or contest a biomedical explanation of ADHD and, thus, the appropriateness of pharmacologic treatment. However, each man wrote during distict periods in American intellectual history, and their interpretation of the issues of the day influenced how they framed the results of their studies.A careful reading of the published works of Bradley and Eisenberg in light of their broader historical, intellectual and therapeutic contexts illuminates how both men derived a much wider range of uses for and interpretations of stimulants as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for a range of children’s disorders.In contrast to contemporary debates, a close reading of the published works of Bradley and Eisenberg demonstrates that social constructions of childhood buttressed rather than contradicted the commitment of both men to psycho-stimulant research and treatment in children. More importantly, both men wrestled with a different dualism, one that current medical and critical arguments leave intact. Stimulants, to each man, disrupted American clinical and popular models of mental and physical illness and distinctions between them. They struggled with the distinction between organic diseases and adaptive disorders. A better understanding of Bradley and Eisenberg’s views will enable a more nuanced reading of current theories of ADHD by explaining not simply who is right among varying perpectives, but how we can account for continually divergent interpretations of the relationship between stimulants, children, and ADHD.Careful scrutiny of their work will also expand the range of issues necessary to understand ADHD—the most commonly diagnosed childhood behavior disorder.
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