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Katherine
Darton's Notes of the history of mental health care
(on the MIND website) begins in 10,000 BC History of the Conceptualizations of Mental Illness by Jessie in Japan begins in "prehistoric times" A history of Mental Health, by an unknown nursing student (1992), begins in "primitive times". The
Disability Social History Project's Michael
Warren's health in Britain chronology
Galen,
Greek physician
AD
129 Galen born in Pergamum, in what is now Turkey. He died about
AD 216. His massive writings on medicine included the theory
of the humours or body fluids (like blood) whose preponderance had
a marked affect on a person's health and personality. (See melancholy).
From
the late 11th century, Hunain ibn Ishaq's Arabic translations of Galen,
commentaries by Arab physicians, and sometimes the original Greek,
were translated into Latin. These became the basis of medical education
in the European universities that started in the late 12th century
King
Henry 2nd bought land next to Newgate (the gate looking west from
the City of London towards Westminster) for a prison. Newgate prison occupied this site until
1881. The Old Bailey (Central Criminal Court) now stands there.
1290
De Praerogativa Regis, the Act giving the King
custody of the lands of natural fools and wardship of the property
of the insane, may have been drawn up between 1255 and 1290.
The
religious priory of St Mary of Bethlem, in London, was confiscated
by King Edward 3rd in 1375, and used for lunatics from 1377. (Jones 1972 p.12). In 1403/1404 it had just six
insane patients and three who were sane. (Scull 1972 p.19). This old Bedlam was a
small institution (on a site south of what is now Liverpool Street Station),
even in the 17th century when it had about 30 patients. Its showy
replacement, the Moorfields Bedlam, opened in 1676.
The
priory of St Mary of Bethlem was founded in 1247 as a priory in
Bishopsgate Street, for the order of St. Mary of Bethlehem, by
Simon Fitz Mary, an Alderman and Sheriff of London. The Catholic Encyclopedia says it was a hospital (place
of refuge) from the begining 'originally intended for the poor
suffering from any ailment and for such as might have no other
lodging, hence its name, Bethlehem, in Hebrew, the "house of bread."'
1403
Report
of a Visitation which had enquired into the deplorable state of
affairs at Bethlem Hospital (Michael Warren). There is a report of a Royal
Commission, in 1405, as to the state of lunatics confined there.
(Catholic Encyclopedia)
1464: Examples of people being granted custody of an idiot and his or her property. 1495 Syphillis, possibly introduced from the new world, broke out amongst troops in Italy and rapidly spread across Europe, reaching England and Holland in 1496. It reached India in 1498. In 1500 there was an epidemic of syphillis across Europe and in 1505 it reached China. The connection between syphillis and general paralysis of the insane was not demonstrated until the 20th century.
1518
1536
First
Act of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Although the religious
foundations were closed, any "hospital" (refuge for the homeless
poor) attached might continue. (The hospital of St Bartholemews
in London, for example, continued when the priory closed). Continued
existence would be precarious, however, unless civic authorities
sought to preserve it.
1538
The
City of London unsuccessfully petitioned the King to give them five
hospitals plus their endowments. The hospitals included Bethlem, St Bartholomew and St Thomas. They were
needed to house:
27.12.1547
King Henry 8th signed a document giving Bethlem Hospital and St Bartholomew to the City
of London. The name "St Bartholomew" being changed to "the House
of the Poor in West Smithfield".
13.1.1547
King Henry 8th signed a document giving the endowments of Bethlem
Hospital and St Bartholomew to the City of London.
1557
From
1557, Bethlem was managed by the governors of the Bridewell House
of Correction (established 1550). The governors were chosen by the
City of London. Bethlem was controlled by the City of London until
it was transferred to the National Health Service in 1948
Bedlam
shown on the earliest surviving map of London. This is a copper
plate engraving of Moorfields, discovered in 1962, and bought
by the London Museum.
The
map is in pictures and was probably drawn in 1558 by the Dutch
artist Anthonis van den Wyngaerrde in 1558, and engraved by
Franciscus Hogenberg in 1559
[External Link to copy on the Rootsweb site.
There is a clearer image of Bedlam on the London Museum web exhibit]
1611 Authorised (King James) version of the Bible. The bible was a major source for ideas about virtually everything in the 17th century, and later. In her Notes of the history of mental health care (on the MIND website), Katherine Darton outlines some of its influences in her consideration of the Jewish tradition. (Scroll down from 2,000BC).
about
1615
Giles
Earle His Booke, a manuscript collection of lyrics in the British
Museum, contains the first known written version of the English
Folk lyrics "Tom o' Bedlam's Song" (see Bedlam weblinks)
1621
But
see the Madman rage downright With furious looks, a ghastly
sight, Naked in chains bound doth he lie, And roars amain,
he knows not why. Observe him; for as in a glass, Thine angry
potraiture it was. His picture keep still in thy presence;
'Twixt him and the there's no difference.
October
1636 Commenting on the physics of Galileo, Thomas Hobbes wrote "the motion is only in the
medium and light and colour are but the effects of that motion in
the brain". Hobbes was to apply the idea of studying motion in matter
to the study of light meeting the eye and ideas in the mind. In Leviathan he laid the foundations for assocationist theories of thought.
30.1.1649: English king beheaded
Working
with the Bible, it was possible to calculate that something
spectacular was likely to happen in the 1650s. For example, it could
be calculated that the great flood that destroyed all life not in
the Ark took place 1,656 years after the creation - So 1,656 years after the birth of Christ could be
equally significant. (Usher's chronology put the creation in 4004 and
the flood in 2349. 4004- 2349 = 1655). The execution of a King was
woven into speculation that Christ could be due to return to establish
his kingdom.
Petition
respecting John Pateson at Ormskirk Quarter Sessions, who had fallen
into a sullen, sad, melancholie and would not go indoors or eat
or wash himself. [Described in more detail]. The churchwardens and
overseers were ordered to make an assessment and provide out of
poor rates for his care until he recovered or died.
1655
Meric
Causaubon's Treatise concerning enthusiasme, as it is an effect of
nature, but is mistaken for either divine inspiration or diabolical
possession.
1656
Alleged
internment of Rev. Mr George Trosse (Account not published until
1714) October
1656 James Nayler (Quaker) entered Bristol on a donkey as if he was
Jesus Christ. (see enthusiasm) He was in prison until 1659. Conflict
between Quakers over performances like this was a stimulous to the
creation of a collective discipline that, over a century later, made them the pioneers in
the control of insanity.
1660: Restoration of English Monarchy
1660
From
1660 to 1672, John Bunyan, the founder of the Baptists, was imprisoned
almost continuously in Bedford Gaol for preaching outside the established
church. In prison he wrote Pilgrims Progress and his religious
autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Grace Abounding described religious experiences that
sound like diseases mad doctors were soon to identify.
1.4.1661 to 4.1.1661 Venner's Rising. 5th Monarchy rising suppressed and Veneer and the other leaders executed on 19.1.1661. A hundred 5th Monarchy Men and some 4000 Quakers were imprisoned. "The first official declaration of absolute pacifism was made by the Quakers in 1661, after a number had been arrested after Venner's unsuccesful rising". (Hill 1972, p.241)
1666
Sunday
2.9.1666 for five days: Great Fire of London.
The
new Bethlem was a place for display, set in gardens and modelled
on the Tuileries, the palace of the French King. This is the Bethlem
where the lunatics were displayed to visitors for a fee (until 1770). Londoner's on holiday could visit the zoo
animals at the Tower of London and then stroll up to Moorfields
to see the humans. Thomas Tryon complained in 1695 about
the public being admitted on holy-days:
1670
1690
In
his An Essay Concerning Understanding, John Locke said
there is a degree of madness in almost everyone. This is because
emotions force us to persist in falsely or unreasonably associating
some ideas. Madness is the inability to let reason sort out ideas
by relating them correctly to our experiences.
Locke's
ideas set a pattern for 18th century English views of reason and
unreason. Madness was seen as a persistent inability to associate ideas correctly.
1692
6.3.1682
John Moore, Bishop of Norwich, preaches before the Queen a sermon
afterwards published as Of Religious Melancholy
1696
Bristol
Poor Act established a Board of Guardians who used a building
near St Peter's Church, Bristol as a workhouse for 100 boys. The
addition of "infants, the aged, infirm, and lunatics" (by 1700?)
changed its character and it became St Peter's Hospital. In the 18th century this had
lunatic wards. In the 19th century (1832?) it became a lunatic asylum.
Eighteenth
Century Asylums
English
asylums in the eighteenth century were small and they were not run
by the state. The best known and the largest was Bedlam or Bethlem in the city of
London. This had 130 patients in 1704. There was a growing number
of private madhouses - Probably about 40 in 1800.
After 1774 private madhouses had to have a licence and
it is from the surviving licence records that we can estimate how
many there were. Charitable asylums were opened in the eighteenth
century in eight English towns: Norwich (1713), London (1751), Manchester (1766), Newcastle (1767), York (1777), Liverpool (1792), Leicester (1794) and Hereford (1797)
1700
David Irish in his madhouse near Guildford, Surrey,
claimed to cure by good food and comfort, and would care for those
who were not curable for life, if paid Quarterly:
1713
Norwich Bethel opened. This had 28 patients in
1753.
1714
The
1714 Vagrancy Act is thought to have been
the first English statute to provide specifically for the detention
of lunatics, but Blackstone argues that it was based on common law. [See also my introduction
to Mental Health and Civil Liberties]
1723
Lunatic
Wards to Guys Hospital opened
1725
Richard
Blackmore's Treatise of the Spleen and Vapours
1728
James Monro was resident physician at Bethlem Hospital from 1728 to 1752
1738
Wednesday
31.5.1738: Alexander Cruden escaped from Wright's madhouse, Bethnal Green, and successfully
applied to the Lord Mayor to prevent his recapture. He published
an account in 1739 (The London-Citizen Exceedingly Injured) "as
plainly showing the absolute necessity of regulating Private Madhouses
in a more effectual manner than at present"
13.12.174? Susannah Wesley wrote to her son John (founder of the Methodists) about a man with "more need of a spiritual, than bodily physician" held in the Chelsea madhouse of "that wretched fellow Monroe", the physician to Bedlam. The letter is reproduced in Hunter and Macalpine 1963 p.423 with the date 13.12.1746, but G.E. Harrison in "Son to Susanna" (p.119) says she was buried in Bunhill Fields on 1.8.1742.
1746
1749
David Hartley's Observations on Man, his Frame,
his Duty, and his expectations linked the association of ideas theory of human mind to the
nervous system. Sensations set up vibrations in our nerves which
move rather like sound waves through air. Thought is the association
of these vibrations (ideas) when they meet. Hartley's theory, although
rarely accepted without critical modification, was influential in
philosophy, in the scientific study of mind, and in medicine. Some
connection of thought to the body was necessary (at this time) for
it to be considered a medical issue, and considering the nerves
as conductors along which thought waves run provided a possible
connection of mind and body. At the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century, theories such as
those of Sigmund Freud provided a means for medicine to
include psychological "functional" disorders as well as "organic"
ones.
1751
Saint Luke's Hospital for Lunatics opened
in Upper Moorfields, opposite [??] (see sketch map) Bethlem Hospital on the north side of what is today
Finsbury Square. William Battie was its physician to 1764. He also
acquired premises in Islington for private patients and, in 1754,
took over Newton's madhouse at Clerkenwell. Saint Luke's had 57
patients in 1753. It moved to Old Street in 1786
1752
John
Monro was physician at Bethlem Hospital from 1752. He also opened a private
asylum at Brooke House Hackney in 1759.
Sometime in the mid 1750s: a magistrate secured the release of Mrs Gold's daughter from Hoxton House (madhouse), where she had been confined by her husband.
1754
In
December 1754, The Royal College of Physicians declined a suggestion that they should be an authority
for regulating madhouses in London.
1762
5.9.1762
to 4.10.1762: Mrs Hawley confined in a Chelsea madhouse. Her
release was secured by a writ of habeas corpus.
1763
A large
part of their report was an examination of the issues raised by
the (eventually successful) attempts of a Mr La Fortune to secure the release of a Mrs Hawley (confined
in a Chelsea house 5.9.1762 to 4.10.1762) by writ of habeas corpus.
They were specifically concerned with the extent to which madhouses
were used to confine people who were not lunatics.
1765
1765
to 1769 William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England published
by the Oxford University Press.
1766
Manchester Lunatic Asylum opened
1767
Newcastle Lunatic Asylum opened
1774
Each
September, from 1774 to 1827, Royal College of Physicians
appointed five of its Fellows commissioners for the year. They met
in October to grant licences. They could not refuse or revoke a
licence. (see law) The
RCP President, in the name of the Treasurer was to prosecute anyone
(in the London area) who kept an unlicensed house,
admitted any patients without a medical certificate or failed to
notify the Secretary of the admission of a non-pauper. (see
law)
The
commission could not release a patient improperly confined. This
was the traditional role of the High Courts at Westminster, for
whose benefit the registers were principally kept. The Westminster
courts could also order special visits and reports, and examine
those engaged in the execution of the Act. (see
law)
Private
individuals could apply to the commission to find out if someone
was registered as a patient and, if so, where he or she was detained.
(see law)
The
commission was financed entirely from fees charged for licenses,
from which the Treasurer paid every commissioner one guinea for
each house visited (irrespective of the time taken) and the Secretary
an annual salary. (see law)
Outside
London, houses were to be licensed and visited by the Justices of
the Peace. (see law)
Medical
cartificates were required for the detention of a person as a lunatic.
(See law)
1777
York Asylum opened
1780
"In
the sultry, early June days of June 1780, the Lord George Gordon
No- Popery Riots rolled through town". On Tuesday 6.6.1780, William
Blake was caught up in the riot, and witnessed the sack of Newgate
prison. On 12.6.1780 William Cowper wrote to John Newton congratulating
him "upon the wisdom that witheld you from entering yourself a member
of" [George Gordon's] "the Protestant Association". When Charles Dickens made a novel of the riots, his leading
character combined lunacy and weak-mindedness.
1782
The
Royal College of Physicians was advised by the Attorney General that its funds
were at risk if it prosecuted someone for running a madhouse without
a licence.
1784
1786
Saint
Luke's Hospital moved from Moorfields to Old Street. It had 298 patients in
1815. On an 1832 London map it stretches along Old Street from Bath
Street to City Road. Its physician to 1841 was Alexander Robert Sutherland, also licensee of two
private houses: Blacklands House, Chelsea. and Fisher House, Islington. The physician from 1841
to 1860 was his son, AlexanderJohn Sutherland. Henry Monro was a physician from 1855 to 1882.
In 1881 the address was St Lukes Hospital For Lunatics, Old
St, City Road, London, and the Resident Medical Superintendent was
George Mickley
1787
William
Perfect M.D., proprietor of West Malling asylum, published Select Cases
in the Different Species of Insanity, Lunacy or Madness, with the
modes of practice as adopted in the treatment of each.
1788
Wedneday
5.11.1788 Newspaper article revealed that George 3rd, who was
ill, had been "delirius". That evening, the King's personal physician,
Sir George Baker, found him "under an entire alienation
of mind". Other physicians called in to advise included: William
Heberden, Richard Warren , Henry Revell Reynolds and Lucas Pepys.
Most
of the doctors had experience in the Royal College of Physicians'
Commission for Visiting Madhouses, but they were
not specialists in mental disorder. At the end of November, Dr Anthony
Addington, a society doctor who had treated William Pitt the elder's
disorder and had once run a private madhouse, was called in to advise.
The
King was removed from Windsor to Kew, for a more therapeutic confinement
and to be closer to London doctors, and was there (Friday 5.12.1788)
introduced to Rev. Dr Francis Willis, the owner of a private madhouse in Lincolnshire, who took control
of the King's treatment.
10.12.1788:
The House of Commons published a Committee report containing the
evidence of Royal Physicians on the state of the King's mind.
1789
23.4.1789
Services of thanksgiving throughout the country to celebrate the
recovery of King George 3rd from insanity. "Britons Rejoice. Your
King's Restored"
In
Paris: arrangements were made for insane men to be sent to
the Bicêtre and insane women to the Salpétrière (200 insane women moved
there in 1792). After an initial period of
confusion, the two institutions became reserved for the insane.
Jeremy
Bentham published Panopticon; or, the Inspection-House: Containing
the Idea of a New Principle of Construction Applicable to
Any Sort of Establishment, in which Persons of Any Description
Are to Be Kept Under Inspection.
1792
Liverpool Lunatic Asylum opened
1794
Leicester Lunatic Asylum opened
1796
June
1796 The Retreat, a hospital for insane Quakers and those they recommended, opened by the
Religious Society of Friends in York. The Society of Friends had
developed a powerful collective discipline of its members. At the
Retreat, this was adapted to the control of insanity, replacing
many physical restraints with moral restraints. In the 1830s, the
Tuke family, who founded the Retreat, went on to reform the internal discipline of the Society of Friends.
[ External link to Retreat website]
Mary Lamb murdered her mother in a fit of
insanity.
She
was confined in Fisher House, Islington for a period and
lived in the care of her brother for the rest of her life,
sometimes being cared for in a licensed house or a single house.
1797
Hereford Lunatic Asylum opened
Nineteenth
Century Asylums
The
nineteenth century opened dramatically with a pistol shot, and the
gun fingers of Hadfield and McNaughton were to trigger the opening of many
asylums. The state entered the field in a big way. By the end of
the century there were 74,000 patients in public asylums. The early
period of state asylums was custodial, out of it developed a period of therapeutic optimism that reached its height in
the 1840s, and declined into therapeutic pessimism in the second half of the
nineteenth century.
1800
15.5.1800
The ball of a pistol fired at George 3rd by James Hadfield just
missed by a foot. Hadfield was detained as a criminal lunatic.
28.7.1800
The 1800 Criminal Lunatics Act aimed at the
safe custody of criminal lunatics, especially any who threatened
the king. The consequent long term detention of lunatics in county gaols
triggered the 1808 County Asylums Act. [[Fear of lunatics, heightened
by the publicity about Hadfield and the Act, may be reflected in
the life of Mary Lamb]
1806
January
1806 The short lived Ministry of All Talents (1806-1807) shifted the
political landscape enough to allow in lunacy legislation in 1808.
After that, however, changes were blocked by the Lords until 1828.
1807
Before
renewing the licence for Great Foster House, Egham, Surrey County magistrates
required a pledge from Richard Browne, surgeon that he would remove
chains used to chain disturbed patients to the floor in the bedrooms
and other rooms when keepers were absent. They suggested more attendants
and "less violent means". (see law)
1808
23.6.1808
The 1808 County Asylums Act was the first Act
permitting counties to levy a rate to build asylums. It was promoted
by Charles Watkins Williams Wynn. Its main purpose
was to remove lunatics from gaols and workhouses to buildings where
they would be easier to manage. I found nothing in the preparation
of the Bill referring to asylums as places for cure.
1810
1811
June
1811 The Royal College of Physicians considered that the 1774 Madhouse Act needed revising, but appears to have been deterred by the expense of
private legislation. The cause was picked up by George Rose in 1813
5.12.1811 George, Prince of Wales, became
Regent, after the final descent of George 3rd into insanity. For
the rest of his life (he died 29.1.1820) George 3rd remained in
confinement at Windsor under the control of Dr Robert Darling Willis. The King's own physicians
(including Henry Halford) were unable to see him without the
permission of Dr Willis.
1812
Tuesday 12.5.1812 Assassination of Spencer
Perceval, the Prime Minister, by John Bellingham, an alleged lunatic
who was rapidly hanged (Monday 18.5.1812). At his trial (Friday
15.5.1812) the arguments for his insanity were dismissed without
time for witnesses to be called. With luddite attacks internally
and war with Napoleon externally, dramatic action was necessary.
William Cobbett was watching the crowd as Bellingham was hanged
Much
more substantial funds went to the support of the Perceval family.
Spencer Perceval junior, the eldest son of the
assassinated Prime Minister, became an MP and an honorary lunacy
commissioner. His religious enthusiasm led to a description of
him as having "gone mad" in the House of Commons in March 1832.
John Thomas Perceval, a younger son, was confined
as a lunatic in 1831 and helped to found the Alleged Lunatics
Friend Society in 1845.
June?
1812 Bedfordshire County Asylum opened.
1813
Bills
to reform the Madhouses Act were promoted, unsuccessfully by George Rose in 1813, 1814, 1816 and 1817. In 1815, he moved for and chaired the 1815-1816 Select Committee of the House of Commons on Madhouses.
The impulse for Rose's Bill may have come from the Royal College
of Physician's, which had decided in 1811 that it could not promote its own Bill for
revision.
2.3.1813
Mr Roberts, solicitor to the Royal College of Physicians, visited Mrs Foulkes at a house in Ivy Lane, Hoxton,
owned by Mr Dunston, Master of St Luke's to ask why she was detaining
four lunatics there (some in strait-waistcoats) without a licence.
The college successfully prosecuted her.
7.7.1813
House of Commons granted Rose leave to bring in a Bill to repeal
the 1774 Madhouses Act and make other provisions in its place.
December
1813 William and Samuel Tuke (of the Retreat) and Godfrey Higgins, a magistrate, bought
their way onto the York Asylum Board of Governors to break through
the asylum's secrecy.
December
1813 to April 1814 Correspondence between William Hone, James
Bevans and Edward Wakefield about a possible London Asylum.
[external link to Kyle Grimes 1999]
1814
Wednesday
18.5.1814 Norfolk County Asylum opened
"a
stout ring was rivetted round his neck, from which a short
chain passed to a ring made to slide upwards or downwards
on an upright massive iron bar... Round his body a strong
iron bar about two inches wide was rivetted... which being
fashioned to and enclosing each of his arms, pinioned them
close to his sides.... bars... passing over his shoulders,
were rivetted to the waist bar both before and behind..."
(Edward Wakefield to Select Committee in 1815) 26.12.1814
A fire at York Asylum killed four patients and prevented
effective investigation of the asylum.
1815
The
Moorfields Bethlem was replaced by one at St George's
Fields, South London, in 1815. Following a Select Committee Report in 1807, the Government
made an agreement with Bethlem's Governors that the new asylum should
have two wings for 60 criminal lunatics. By 1852 Bethlem contained
over 100 of the country's 436 criminal lunatics. They were moved
to Broadmoor in 1863. The present Imperial War Museum is the administrative block
of the Moorfields Bethlem. The dome was added in 1846.
James
Bevans, "Architect of Grays Inn Square", put before the 1815 Select
Committee on madhouses a "Panopticon Plan" for a proposed London Asylum,
which was never built.
11.7.1815:
First Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons
on Madhouses
1816
26.4.1816
to 11.6.1816: Further Reports from the Select Committee of the House of
Commons on Madhouses
July
1816 Thomas Monro dismissed as physician at Bethlem Hospital, but succeded by his son, Edward Thomas Monro (see 1852)
Sunday
28.7.1816 Lancashire County Asylum (1st), Lancaster Moor
opened
1818
Haslar
Hospital, the Royal Naval Asylum, opened at Gosport, near Portsmouth.
The naval officers in Hoxton House were removed to Haslar. Relatives
appreciated this as the treatment at Haslar was good, but were distressed
when deductions from pensions were made as a contribution to costs
(Hansard 16.7.1844). In 1844 its principal medical
officer was Sir W. Burnett, M.D., and it had 98 patients, 29 of
whom were commissioned officers.
1.10.1818
Staffordshire County Asylum opened.
1819
Chatham
Royal Military Asylum opened at Fort Clarence, Chatham. In 1844
its principal medical officer was Andrew Smith M.D., and it had
70 patients, 21 of whom were commissioned officers.
1820
20.4.1820
Lincoln Lunatic Asylum opened.
1822
1823
Gloucester County Asylum
1824
George
Combe's Elements of Phrenology published. Phrenology was
the identification of an individual's faculties by feeling the shape
of the skull. Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) was one of the first
to carry out anatomical dissections of the human brain. He argued
that mind was based on the brain, that different characteristics
of mind would give different shapes to the surface of the brain
(variations in the size of lobes) and that the shape of the brain
imposed itself on the skull. Johann Kasper Spurzheim (1776-1832)
combined this theory with the idea that the individual's environment
should be adapted to his or her faculties. This could be done in
institutions such as schools and asylums. Amongst those who followed
the science of phrenology were the educational pioneer, Robert Owen, the medical journalist, Thomas Wakley and the medical superintendents of
many lunatic asylums, including William Ellis, John Conolly and Samuel Gaskell. Phrenology provided the scientific
basis on which moral management could be considered a medical
issue.
1825
First Act regulating private asylums in Ireland
1826
The
autumn of 1826 saw the onset of John Stuart Mill's "dull state of nerves" which was cured by poetry.
1827
29.6.1827:
Report from the Select Committee on Pauper Lunatics in the
County of Middlesex and on Lunatic Asylums presented
by Robert Gordon
1828
1829
Therapeutic Optimism: The optimistic period in the history of asylums runs from about 1830 to around 1860. It was at its height in the 1840s. Asylums built under the 1808 and 1828 County Asylums Act tended to be left to the management of doctors. As the theories and techniques of managing lunatics in asylums developed, so did the belief that this asylum treatment itself was the correct, scientific way to cure lunacy.
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
A
Treatise on Insanity, by James Cowles Prichard was the main textbook on
the subject for many years. In it he elaborated the concept of moral insanity that he had previously outlined
in articles.
1837
14.5.1837
New Leicestershire County Asylum opened
In
1837, John Elliotson, founder (1823/1824) of the London Phrenological
Society, Professor of Practical Medicine at the (new) University
of London and a founder of University College Hospital, was converted
to mesmerism by the experiments of Baron Dupotet at Middlesex Hospital.
The theory of mesmerism, at this time, was not psychological, but
physical. Electricity was held to effect the "animal magnetism"
within the human nervous system. Unlike phrenology, mesmerism did not gain medical credibility.
Thomas Wakley was unconvinced, even by a personal
demonstration at his home in August 1838. In the Winter of 1838,
Elliotson resigned from University College when ordered to stop
the practice. In 1843 he founded Zoist, a journal about "cerebral
physiology and mesmerism and their applications for human welfare"
and in 1846 his Harveian Oration (on mesmerism) at the Royal College
of Physicians was the first to be given in English instead of Latin.
1838
Railways
made the national government of lunatic asylums and a national trade
in pauper lunatics possible. In September 1838 the London
to Birmingham Railway opened. The first main line in the world.
112.5 miles long from Camden to Birmingham, it linked to the Grand
Junction at Curzun Street, Birmingham, and this linked to the Liverpool
and Manchester north of Warrington, near Newton.
1839
May
1839 John Connolly visited Lincoln Asylum where Robert Gardiner Hill had abolished
mechanical restraint of patients in a small asylum. On appointment
to Hanwell, Connolly proceeded to abolish it in a
large asylum. Several English asylums were practising non-restraint
by 1844.
Select Committee of the House of Commons Hereford Lunatic
Asylum. A madhouse proprietor tried to work the system,
and focused the attention of parliament onto the counties.
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