Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody

Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody
Author: Leonard Smith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 330
Release: 1999-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 056724041X

This book is a study of the pioneer early county asylums, which were intended to provide for the 'cure', and 'safe custody' of people suffering from the ravages of insanity. It considers the origins of the asylums, how they were managed, the people who staffed them, their treatment practices, and the experiences of the people who were incarcerated. 'Community care' in the late 20th century has led us to abandon the network of nineteenth century lunatic asylums. This book reminds us of the ideals that lay behind them. The book contains extensive material regarding particular cities/counties, e.g. Nottingham, Lincoln, Stafford, Wakefield, Lancaster, Bedford, West Riding, Norfolk, Cornwall, Dorset, Suffolk, etc.

Sex and Seclusion, Class and Custody

Sex and Seclusion, Class and Custody
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2016-08-29
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9004333592

This innovative collection of essays employs historical and sociological approaches to provide important case studies of asylums, psychiatry and mental illness in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Leading scholars in the field working on a variety of geographical, temporal, socio-cultural, economic and political contexts, show how class and gender have historically affected and conditioned the thinking, language, and processes according to which society identified and responded to the mentally ill. Contributors to this volume focus on both class and gender and thus are able to explore their interaction, whereas previous publications addressed class or gender incidentally, partially, or in isolation. By adopting this dual focus as its unifying theme, the volume is able to supply new insights into such interesting topics as patient careers, the relationship between lay and professional knowledge of insanity, the boundaries of professional power, and the creation of psychiatric knowledge. Particularly useful to student readers (and to those new to this academic field) is a substantive and accessible introduction to existing scholarship in the field, which signposts the ways in which this collection challenges, adjusts and extends previous perspectives.

Curing Madness?

Curing Madness?
Author: Shilpi Rajpal
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2020-11-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190993324

Curing Madness? focusses on the institutional and non-institutional histories of madness in colonial north India. It proves that 'madness' and its 'cure' are shifting categories which assumed new meanings and significance as knowledge travelled across cultural, medical, national, and regional boundaries. The book examines governmental policies, legal processes, diagnosis and treatment, and individual case histories by looking closely at asylums in Agra, Benaras, Bareilly, Lucknow, Delhi, and Lahore. Rajpal highlights that only a few mentally ill ended up in asylums; most people suffering from insanity were cared for by their families and local vaidyas, ojhas, and pundits. These practitioners of traditional medicine had to reinvent themselves to retain their relevance as Western medical knowledge was widely disseminated in colonial India. Evidence of this is found in the Hindi medical advice literature of the era. Taking these into account Shilpi Rajpal moves beyond asylum-centric histories to examine extensive archival materials gathered from various repositories.

Insanity and the Lunatic Asylum in the Nineteenth Century

Insanity and the Lunatic Asylum in the Nineteenth Century
Author: Thomas Knowles
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317318552

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.

Private Madhouses in England, 1640–1815

Private Madhouses in England, 1640–1815
Author: Leonard Smith
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2020-06-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030416402

This book examines the origins and early development of private mental health-care in England, showing that the current spectacle of commercially-based participation in key elements of service provision is no new phenomenon. In 1815, about seventy per cent of people institutionalised because of insanity were being kept in private ‘madhouses’. The opening four chapters detail the emergence of these madhouses and demonstrate their increasing presence in London and across the country during the long eighteenth century. Subsequent chapters deal with specific aspects in greater depth - the insane patients themselves, their characteristics, and the circumstances surrounding admissions; the madhouse proprietors, their business activities, personal attributes and professional qualifications or lack of them; changing treatment practices and the principles that informed them. Finally, the book explores conditions within the madhouses, which ranged from the relatively enlightened to the seriously defective, and reveals the experiences, concerns and protests of their many critics.

The Confinement of the Insane

The Confinement of the Insane
Author: Roy Porter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2003-08-07
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1139439626

The rise of the asylum constitutes one of the most profound, and controversial, events in the history of medicine. Academics around the world have begun to direct their attention to the origins of the confinement of those deemed 'insane', exploring patient records in an attempt to understand the rise of the asylum within the wider context of social and economic change of nations undergoing modernisation. Originally published in 2003, this edited volume brings together thirteen original research papers to answer key questions in the history of asylums. What forces led to the emergence of mental hospitals in different national contexts? To what extent did patient populations vary in terms of their psychiatric profile and socio-economic background? What was the role of families, communities and the medical profession in the confinement process? This volume therefore represents a landmark study in the history of psychiatry by examining asylum confinement in a global context.

Hearing Voices

Hearing Voices
Author: Brendan Kelly
Publisher: Irish Academic Press
Total Pages: 610
Release: 2016-11-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1911024442

Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland is a monumental work by one of Ireland’s leading psychiatrists, encompassing every psychiatric development from the Middle Ages to the present day, and examining the far-reaching social and political effects of Ireland’s troubled relationship with mental illness. From the “Glen of Lunatics”, said to cure the mentally ill, to the overcrowded asylums of later centuries – with more beds for the mentally ill than any other country in the world – Ireland has a complex, unsettled history in the practice of psychiatry. Kelly’s definitive work examines Ireland’s unique relationship with conceptions of mental ill health throughout the centuries, delving into each medical breakthrough and every misuse of authority – both political and domestic – for those deemed to be mentally ill. Through fascinating archival records, Kelly writes a crisp and accessible history, evaluating everything from individual case histories to the seismic effects of the First World War, and exploring the attitudes that guided treatments, spanning Brehon Law to the emerging emphasis on human rights. Hearing Voices is a marvel that affords incredible insight into Ireland’s social and medical history while providing powerful observations on our current treatment of mental ill health in Ireland.

Institutionalizing the Insane in Nineteenth-Century England

Institutionalizing the Insane in Nineteenth-Century England
Author: Anna Shepherd
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317319052

The nineteenth century brought an increased awareness of mental disorder, epitomized in the Asylum Acts of 1808 and 1845. Shepherd looks at two very different institutions to provide a nuanced account of the nineteenth-century mental health system.

Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830

Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830
Author: Leonard Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2013-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134187785

Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830 constitutes the first comprehensive study of the philanthropic asylum system in Georgian England. Using original research and drawing upon a wide range of expertise on the history of mental health this book demonstrates the crucial role of the lunatic hospitals in the early development of a national system of psychiatric institutions. These hospitals were to form an essential historical link in the emergence of a national system of institutional provision for mentally disordered people. They provided important prototypes for the subsequent development of a network of state-sponsored lunatic asylums during the nineteenth century. This is an impressive volume which covers various areas including: the provincial lunatic hospitals managing the hospital managing the insane. This book will interest specialist historians as well as mental health professionals and people interested in local and regional studies.

Insanity, Race and Colonialism

Insanity, Race and Colonialism
Author: L. Smith
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2014-10-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1137318058

Despite emancipation from the evils of enslavement in 1838, most people of African origin in the British West Indian colonies continued to suffer serious material deprivation and racial oppression. This book examines the management and treatment of those who became insane, in the period until the Great War.