Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:31:42.085Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Madness at the crossroads: John Home's letters from the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, 1886–87

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

M. Barfoot  and
A. W. Beveridge
M. Barfoot
Affiliation:
Medical Archive Centre for Lothian Health Board, University Library, Edinburgh
A. W. Beveridge*
Affiliation:
Medical Archive Centre for Lothian Health Board, University Library, Edinburgh
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr A. W. Beveridge, West Fife District General Hospital, Whitefield Road, Dunfermline, Fife, KYI2 0SU.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

A detailed and critical discussion of John Home, a certified inmate of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum during 1886–87, is presented from a historical perspective which is sensitive to the respective positions of the practitioner and the patient. Particular attention is paid to the letters Home wrote during his confinement and their significance for understanding asylum life during this period. Some interpretative difficulties surrounding the use of medical records, patient letters and other related evidence are also examined.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , May 1990 , pp. 263 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bucknill, J. C. & Tuke, D. H. (1885). A Manual of Psychological Medicine. Churchill: London.Google Scholar
Bynum, W. F. (1974). Rationales for therapy in British psychiatry. Medical History 18, 317–334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bynum, W. F., Porter, R. & Shepherd, M. (eds.) (1985, 1988). The Anatomy of Madness: Essays on the History of Psychiatry, 3 vols. Tavistock & Routledge: London.Google Scholar
Clark, M. J. (1981). The rejection of psychological approaches to mental disorder in late nineteenth-century British psychiatry. In Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era (ed. Scull, A.), pp. 271–312. Athlone: London.Google Scholar
Clouston, T. S. (1879). The Study of Mental Disease: Being the Introductory Lecture in the University of Edinburgh, on the Institution of the Lectureship on Mental Diseases, May 1879. Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Clouston, T. S. (1883). Clinical Lectures on Mental Disease. Churchill: London.Google Scholar
Clouston, T. S. (1885). The Position of the Medical Profession in Regard to Certificates of Mental Unsoundness and Civil Incapacity. Read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, 4th March 1879. Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Clouston, T. S. (1886). Physician-Superintendent's annual report for the year 1886. In Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the Insane, pp. 9–20. Royal Edinburgh Asylum: Morningside, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Clouston, T. S. (1887). Physician-Superintendent's annual report for the year 1887. In Seventy-fifth Annual Report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the Insane, pp. 9–22. Royal Edinburgh Asylum: Morningside, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Cooter, R. (1976). Phrenology and British alienists, c. 1825–1845. Medical History 20, 1–21; 135–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Digby, A. (1985). Madness, Morality and Medicine: A Study of the York Retreat 1796–1914. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Digby, A. (1987). Quantitative and qualitative perspectives on the asylum. In Problems and Methods in the History of Medicine, (ed. Porter, R. & Wear, A.), pp. 153–174. Croom-Helm: London.Google Scholar
Duncan, A. (1812). Short Account of the Rise, Progress and present State of the Lunatic Asylum at Edinburgh with some Remarks on the General Treatment of Lunatics, Pointing out the Advantages of Avoiding all Severity. Neill: Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Finnane, M. (1981). Insanity and the Insane in Post-Famine Ireland. Croom Helm: London.Google Scholar
Fish, F. (1965). David Skae, M.D., F.R.C.S., founder of the Edinburgh school of psychiatry. Medical History 9, 36–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garfinkle, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology, ch. 6. ‘Good’ organizational reasons for ‘bad’ clinical records. Pp. 186–207. Prentice-Hall: New Jersey.Google Scholar
Garton, S. (1988). Medicine and Madness: A Social History of Insanity in New South Wales 1880–1940. New South Wales University Press: Kensington.Google Scholar
Hind, R. J. (1972). Henry Labouchere and the Empire, 1880–1905. Athlone: London.Google Scholar
Jacyna, L. S. (1982). Somatic theories of mind and the interests of medicine in Britain 1850–1879. Medical History 26, 233–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCandless, P. (1981). Liberty and lunacy: the Victorians and wrongful confinement. In Madhouses, Mad-Doctors and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era (ed. Scull, A.). pp. 339–362. Athlone: London.Google Scholar
MacDonald, M. (1981). Mystical Bedlam: Madness. Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth Century England. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
MacNiven, A. (1960). The first commissioners: reform in Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century. Journal of Mental Science 106, 451–471.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Petersen, D. (1982). A Mad People's History of Madness. University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Porter, R. (1985). Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-Industrial Society. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Porter, R. (1987 a). Mind-Forged Manacles: A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency. Athlone: London.Google Scholar
Porter, R. (1987 b). A Social History of Madness: Stories of the Insane. Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London.Google Scholar
Porter, R. & Porter, D. (1988). In Sickness and in Health: The British Experience 1650–1850. Fourth Estate: London.Google Scholar
Reade, C. (1864). Hard Cash: A Matter-of-Fact Romance. Lock: London.Google Scholar
Robertson, G. M. (1910). Treatment of Mental Excitement in Asylums. Alard: London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, G. M. (1916). The employment of female nurses in the male wards of mental hospitals in Scotland. Edinburgh Medical Journal 16, 193–203.Google Scholar
Robertson, G. M. (1922). The Hospitalisation of the Scottish Asylum System: The Presidential Address … of the Medico-Psychological Association. Alard & Newman: London.Google Scholar
Scull, A. (ed.) (1981). Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era. Athlone: London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sher, R. B. (1985). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh. Princeton University Press: Princeton.Google Scholar
Skae, D. (1863). A rational and practical classification of insanity. Journal of Mental Science 9, 309–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, J. G. (1896). Strathendric and its Inhabitants from Earliest Times. Maclehose: Glasgow.Google Scholar
Smith, R. (1981). Trial by Medicine: Insanity and Responsibility in Victorian Trials. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Thompson, M. S. (1984). The Mad the Bad and the Sad: Psychiatric Care in the Royal Edinburgh Asylum (Morningside) 1813–1894). PhD thesis. Boston University.Google Scholar
Thompson, M. S. (1988). The wages of sin: the problem of alcoholism and general paralysis in nineteenth-century Edinburgh. In The Anatomy of Madness (ed. Bynum, W. F., Porter, R. & Shepherd, M.), vol. 3, pp. 316–340. Tavistock & Routledge: London.Google Scholar
Turner, T. (1989). Rich and mad in Victorian England. Psychological Medicine 19, 29–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
The Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism Explained by way of Question and Answer. 11th ed. (1792). Falkirk: Mair [orig. pub. 1641].Google Scholar