Victorian Lunacy

Victorian Lunacy PDF Author: S. E. D. Shortt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521172820
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This 1986 book explores the theory and practice of late nineteenth-century psychiatry. Psychiatric theory is discussed less as an objective body of biomedical knowledge than as a product of the social turmoil that characterized the final decades of the nineteenth century.

Inconvenient People

Inconvenient People PDF Author: Sarah Wise
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1409027953
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description
This highly original book brilliantly exposes the phenomenon of false allegations of lunacy and the dark motives behind them in the Victorian period. Gaslight tales of rooftop escapes, men and women snatched in broad daylight, patients shut in coffins, a fanatical cult known as the Abode of Love... The nineteenth century saw repeated panics about sane individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums. With the rise of the ‘mad-doctor’ profession, English liberty seemed to be threatened by a new generation of medical men willing to incarcerate difficult family members in return for the high fees paid by an unscrupulous spouse or friend. Sarah Wise uncovers twelve shocking stories, untold for over a century and reveals the darker side of the Victorian upper and middle classes – their sexuality, fears of inherited madness, financial greed and fraudulence – and chillingly evoke the black motives at the heart of the phenomenon of the ‘inconvenient person.' ‘A fine social history of the people who contested their confinement to madhouses in the 19th century, Wise offers striking arguments, suggesting that the public and juries were more intent on liberty than doctors and families’ Sunday Telegraph

Victorian Lunacy

Victorian Lunacy PDF Author: S. E. D. Shortt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521172820
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
This 1986 book explores the theory and practice of late nineteenth-century psychiatry. Psychiatric theory is discussed less as an objective body of biomedical knowledge than as a product of the social turmoil that characterized the final decades of the nineteenth century.

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.

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

An archaeology of lunacy

An archaeology of lunacy PDF Author: Katherine Fennelly
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526126516
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
An archaeology of lunacy is a materially focused exploration of the first wave of public asylum building in Britain and Ireland, which took place during the late-Georgian and early Victorian period. Examining architecture and material culture, the book proposes that the familiar asylum archetype, usually attributed to the Victorians, was in fact developed much earlier. It looks at the planning and construction of the first public asylums and assesses the extent to which popular ideas about reformed management practices for the insane were applied at ground level. Crucially, it moves beyond doctors and reformers, repopulating the asylum with the myriad characters that made up its everyday existence: keepers, clerks and patients. Contributing to archaeological scholarship on institutions of confinement, the book is aimed at academics, students and general readers interested in the material environment of the historic lunatic asylum.

A Lexicon of Lunacy

A Lexicon of Lunacy PDF Author: Thomas Szasz
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412816122
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description


The Anatomy of Madness

The Anatomy of Madness PDF Author: William F. Bynum
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415323840
Category : Psychiatric hospitals
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description


Lunatics, Imbeciles and Idiots

Lunatics, Imbeciles and Idiots PDF Author: Kathryn Burtinshaw
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473879051
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
“Reveals the grisly conditions in which the mentally ill were kept . . . [and] harrowing details of the inhumane and gruesome treatment of these patients.”—Daily Mail In the first half of the nineteenth century, treatment of the mentally ill in Britain and Ireland underwent radical change. No longer manacled, chained and treated like wild animals, patient care was defined in law and medical understanding, and treatment of insanity developed. Focusing on selected cases, this new study enables the reader to understand how progressively advancing attitudes and expectations affected decisions, leading to better legislation and medical practice throughout the century. Specific mental health conditions are discussed in detail and the treatments patients received are analyzed in an expert way. A clear view of why institutional asylums were established, their ethos for the treatment of patients, and how they were run as palaces rather than prisons giving moral therapy to those affected becomes apparent. The changing ways in which patients were treated, and altered societal views to the incarceration of the mentally ill, are explored. The book is thoroughly illustrated and contains images of patients and asylum staff never previously published, as well as first-hand accounts of life in a nineteenth-century asylum from a patient’s perspective. Written for genealogists as well as historians, this book contains clear information concerning access to asylum records and other relevant primary sources and how to interpret their contents in a meaningful way. “Through the use of case studies, this book adds a personal note to the historiography in a way that is often missing from scholarly works.”—Federation of Family History Societies

My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum

My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum PDF Author: Herman Charles Merivale
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 77

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Book Description
This is an enlightening memoir by Herman Merivale, where he narrated his time in one of England's countryside asylums in the 1860s. He was suffering from depression and was taken into care for treatment. Throughout the work, Merivale attacked over-treatment and suggested that being in the asylum during that period could drive someone into insanity even if they were completely normal.

Women and Madness

Women and Madness PDF Author: Phyllis Chesler
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 164160039X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Feminist icon Phyllis Chesler's pioneering work, Women and Madness, remains startlingly relevant today, nearly fifty years since its first publication in 1972. With over 2.5 million copies sold, this landmark book is unanimously regarded as the definitive work on the subject of women's psychology. Now back in print, this completely revised and updated edition adds perspectives on eating disorders, postpartum depression, biological psychology, important feminist political findings, female genital mutilation, and more.