Mental Disability in Victorian England The Earlswood Asylum 1847-1901

by Wright, David

• ISBN13: 9780199246397
• ISBN10: 0199246394
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-06
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

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 theconfinement 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 familialand 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. Byexploring 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, itexamines 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.

Author Biography

David Wright is Jason A. Hannah, Professor of the History of Medicine, McMaster University.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	x
List of Figures	xi
Abbreviations	xii
Introduction	1	(10)
The State and Mental Disability	11	(12)
An Asylum for Idiots	23	(23)
Care in the Community	46	(22)
Institutionalizing Households	68	(17)
Idiots by Election	85	(14)
To Know No Weariness	99	(21)
The Golden Chain of Charity	120	(17)
The Educable Idiot	137	(18)
Down's Syndrome	155	(22)
The Danger of the Feeble-minded	177	(17)
Conclusion	194	(10)
Select Bibliography	204	(25)
Index	229