Savonarola at the stake: the rise and fall of Roy Meadow.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this paper is to describe the role of prominent paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow in the controversy surrounding the diagnosis of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) in mothers accused of murdering their children.


CONCLUSIONS
The MSBP saga is a further chapter of an era of moral panic that started several decades ago with repressed memory therapy, satanic ritual abuse and multiple personalities. The fall of medieval sage Savonarola is an apt analogy for the fate of Roy Meadow. The history of medicine is rife with figures who become their own authority and rule by force of personality.
Graduate Medical School, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
Robert
R
Kaplan
D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D016735:Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000266:history* / Q000523:psychology; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D006113:United Kingdom