Examination of the mentally ills in the Samara province in the 1860-ies

Abstract

The article examines the dynamics of perception of the mentally ill by the Russian society and the state authorities with the help of comparative-historical method and analysis of sources. The chronological framework of the work covers the period from the first attempts to help the insane with the help of spiritual healing in monasteries to the large-scale reforms of the 1860-ies and the revolution in the organization of public medicine. The author is most interested in the changes caused by the formation of psychiatry as a separate branch of medical science, including the emergence of expert psychiatrists and the introduction of psychiatric trials procedures by the middle of the XIX century. For a detailed study of such innovations in psychiatric practice, the procedure of examination of the mentally ill, carried out in the Samara province in the 1860-ies, was chosen. The source base for the research is archival materials from the funds of the Central State Archive of the Samara Region, as well as scientific and published written sources. These include the first Russian textbooks and manuals on psychiatry. There is a growing interest in the study of the phenomenon of «madness» in modern historiography. However, there was practically no large-scale systematic research on the history of the origin of psychiatry in the Samara province in the middle of the XIX century. The findings obtained in the course of the study give an idea of the changing perception of the insane by society and the authorities. There is a transfer of the main role in the trials of the mentally ill and, accordingly, the right to make a conclusion about their condition from representatives of the administrative authorities to psychiatrists. An attitude towards insanity is being formed and consolidated not as a social danger, but as a disease requiring specialized medical care. Thus, madness is transformed from a social phenomenon into a medical one.