Life in the Victorian Asylum

Life in the Victorian Asylum PDF Author: Mark Stevens
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473842379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
A vivid portrait of the day-to-day experience in the public asylums of nineteenth-century England, by the bestselling author of Broadmoor Revealed. Life in the Victorian Asylum reconstructs the lost world of nineteenth-century public asylums. This fresh take on the history of mental health reveals why county asylums were built, the sort of people they housed, and the treatments they received, as well as the enduring legacy of these remarkable institutions. Mark Stevens, a professional archivist, and expert on asylum records, delves into Victorian mental health hospital documents to recreate the experience of entering an asylum and being treated there—perhaps for a lifetime. Praise for Broadmoor Revealed “Superb.” —Family Tree magazine “Detailed and thoughtful.” —Times Literary Supplement “Paints a fascinating picture.” —Who Do You Think You Are? magazine

Life in the Victorian Asylum

Life in the Victorian Asylum PDF Author: Mark Stevens
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473842379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Get Book

Book Description
A vivid portrait of the day-to-day experience in the public asylums of nineteenth-century England, by the bestselling author of Broadmoor Revealed. Life in the Victorian Asylum reconstructs the lost world of nineteenth-century public asylums. This fresh take on the history of mental health reveals why county asylums were built, the sort of people they housed, and the treatments they received, as well as the enduring legacy of these remarkable institutions. Mark Stevens, a professional archivist, and expert on asylum records, delves into Victorian mental health hospital documents to recreate the experience of entering an asylum and being treated there—perhaps for a lifetime. Praise for Broadmoor Revealed “Superb.” —Family Tree magazine “Detailed and thoughtful.” —Times Literary Supplement “Paints a fascinating picture.” —Who Do You Think You Are? magazine

Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum

Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum PDF Author: Jennifer Wallis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319567144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book explores how the body was investigated in the late nineteenth-century asylum in Britain. As more and more Victorian asylum doctors looked to the bodily fabric to reveal the ‘truth’ of mental disease, a whole host of techniques and technologies were brought to bear upon the patient's body. These practices encompassed the clinical and the pathological, from testing the patient's reflexes to dissecting the brain. Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum takes a unique approach to the topic, conducting a chapter-by-chapter dissection of the body. It considers how asylum doctors viewed and investigated the skin, muscles, bones, brain, and bodily fluids. The book demonstrates the importance of the body in nineteenth-century psychiatry as well as how the asylum functioned as a site of research, and will be of value to historians of psychiatry, the body, and scientific practice.

The Victorian Asylum

The Victorian Asylum PDF Author: Sarah Rutherford
Publisher: Shire Publications
ISBN: 9780747806691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Victorian lunatic asylum has a special place in history. Dreaded and reviled by many, these nineteenth-century buildings provide a unique window on how the Victorians housed and treated the mentally ill. Despite initially good intentions, they became warehouses for society's outcasts at a time when cures were far fewer than hoped for. Isolated, hidden in the countryside and surrounded by high walls, they were eventually distributed throughout Britain, the Empire, the Continent and North America, with 120 or so in England and Wales alone. Now the memory of them is fading, and many of the buildings have gone or are threatened. Most have been closed as hospitals since the 1980s and either been demolished or turned into prestigious private apartments, their original use largely forgotten. Their memory deserves rehabilitation as a fascinating part of Victorian life that survived into modern times. In The Victorian Asylum, Sarah Rutherford gives an insight into their history, their often imposing architecture, and their later decline, and brings to life these haunting buildings, some of which still survive today.

Fair Mile Hospital

Fair Mile Hospital PDF Author: Ian Wheeler
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750964790
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Fair Mile was more than just a psychiatric hospital; it was an example of a nationwide network of ‘pauper lunatic asylums’, born of responsible Victorian legislation and compassion for the disadvantaged. It was a secure home to many of its patients and staff, and the community within its walls became an integral part of Cholsey, touching almost every household in the area.Drawing on county records, first-hand accounts and archive photographs, Fair Mile Hospital describes the ethos of the Victorian asylum builders and the development of the facility that treated thousands of patients over four generations. Relating changes in practice and personnel, and the difficulties of two world wars, this is a unique account of a hospital that did its utmost for those in its care.

The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls PDF Author: Emilie Autumn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998990910
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Broadmoor Revealed

Broadmoor Revealed PDF Author: Mark Stevens
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783462361
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
“A fascinating insight into the country’s most famous asylum for criminals” which reveals Victorian England’s care and management of the mentally ill (Your Family Tree). On 27 May 1863, three coaches pulled up at the gates of a new asylum, built amongst the tall, dense pines of Windsor Forest. Broadmoor’s first patients had arrived. In Broadmoor Revealed, Mark Stevens writes about what life was like for the criminally insane, over one hundred years ago. From fresh research into the Broadmoor archives, Mark has uncovered the lost lives of patients whose mental illnesses led them to become involved in crime. Discover the five women who went on to become mothers in Broadmoor, giving birth to new life when three of them had previously taken it. Find out how several Victorian immigrants ended their hopeful journeys to England in madness and disaster. And follow the numerous escapes, actual and attempted, as the first doctors tried to assert control over the residents. As well as bringing the lives of forgotten patients to light, this thrilling book reveals new perspectives on some of the hospital’s most famous Victorian residents: Edward Oxford, the bar boy who shot at Queen Victoria. Richard Dadd, the brilliant artist and murderer of his own father. William Chester Minor, veteran of the American Civil War who went on to play a key part in the first Oxford English Dictionary. Christiana Edmunds, The Chocolate Cream Poisoner and frustrated lover from Brighton. “Detailed and thoughtful.” —Times Literary Supplement “It challenges preconceptions about mental illness and public reaction to shocking crimes.” —Bracknell Forest Standard

Asylum

Asylum PDF Author: Mark Davis
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445636425
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
A photographic journey into the Pauper Lunatic Asylums of Victorian Great Britain

Insanity and the Lunatic Asylum in the Nineteenth Century

Insanity and the Lunatic Asylum in the Nineteenth Century PDF Author: Thomas Knowles
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317318544
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The nineteenth-century asylum was the scene of both terrible abuses and significant advancements in treatment and care. The essays in this collection look at the asylum from the perspective of the place itself – its architecture, funding and purpose – and at the experience of those who were sent there.

Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen

Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen PDF Author: Andrew Scull
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 151280682X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The Victorian Age saw the transformation of the madhouse into the asylum into the mental hospital; of the mad-doctor into the alienist into the psychiatrist; and of the madman (and madwoman) into the mental patient. In Andrew Scull's edited collection Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen, contributors' essays offer a historical analysis of the issues that continue to plague the psychiatric profession today. Topics covered include the debate over the effectiveness of institutional or community treatment, the boundary between insanity and criminal responsibility, the implementation of commitment laws, and the differences in defining and treating mental illness based on the gender of the patient.

Mental Disability in Victorian England

Mental Disability in Victorian England PDF Author: David Wright
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191554359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book contributes to the growing scholarly interest in the history of disability by investigating the emergence of 'idiot' asylums in Victorian England. Using the National Asylum for Idiots, Earlswood, as a case-study, it investigates the social history of institutionalization, privileging the relationship between the medical institution and the society whence its patients came. By concentrating on the importance of patient-centred admission documents, and utilizing the benefits of nominal record linkage to other, non-medical sources, David Wright extends research on the confinement of the 'insane' to the networks of care and control that operated outside the walls of the asylum. He contends that institutional confinement of mentally disabled and mentally ill individuals in the nineteenth century cannot be understood independently of a detailed analysis of familial and community patterns of care. In this book, the family plays a significant role in the history of the asylum, initiating the identification of mental disability, participating in the certification process, mediating medical treatment, and facilitating discharge back into the community. By exploring the patterns of confinement to the Earlswood Asylum, Professor Wright reveals the diversity of the 'insane' population in Victorian England and the complexities of institutional committal in the nineteenth century. Moreover, by investigating the evolution of the Earlswood Asylum, it examines the history of the institution where John Langdon Down made his now famous identification of 'Mongolism', later renamed Down's Syndrome. He thus places the formulation of this archetype of mental disability within its historical, cultural, and scientific contexts.