Public Lunatic Asylums Research Articles

Out of sound, out of mind: noise control in early nineteenth-century lunatic asylums in England and Ireland

This article examines the rhetoric and design principles invested in public lunatic asylum architecture in the early nineteenth century. Using case studies from England and Ireland, this article will focus on the creation of a sensory environment conducive to the reform of these institutions, and how this was applied – intentionally or otherwise – in the built environment. Objections to door locks and the noise made by footsteps testify to the weight placed on the importance of the patient’s sensory well-being. It will be argued these initial features of sound control were bound up in a paternalistic, yet moral, approach to insanity and reform, with varying degrees of success.

Comfort in Small Things? Clothing, Control and Agency in County Lunatic Asylums in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century England

This article examines clothing in public lunatic asylums in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. It considers the intentions of the authorities but also explores patient experience and agency, which have been notoriously difficult to access. Publicly funded (pauper) patients had to give up their own clothes and wear the asylum's standard apparel. Asylum authorities did not envision this as a uniform, either honorific or punitive, and claimed that imposed dress was intended to improve patients' behaviour and assist recovery. There was growing awareness that variety in dress could be beneficial and there were calls for some pauper patients to be allowed to wear their own clothes, but this was ultimately impractical within the economy of mass provision in the public asylum. Although clothing might have offered comfort to the impoverished, some patients were angered and humiliated by its imposition. Ill-fitting items and rough fabrics could be a daily, bodily, reminder to the wearers of the shame ...

Alienists, Attendants and the Containment of Suicide in Public Lunatic Asylums, 1845-1890

Suicidal lunatics were only one patient group among several that alienists and asylum attendants had to care for, but the danger and risk associated with suicide made them one of the more difficult to manage. The task of suicide prevention was a priority for asylum staff as they endeavoured to save life and avoid criticism and investigation from the asylums' regulating body. This article investigates the contribution alienists and attendants made to the management and prevention of suicide in English public lunatic asylums during the second half of the nineteenth century. It examines the respective contribution alienists and attendants made to the handling of suicidal patients, with varying levels of involvement. In doing so, it argues that the practical application of suicide prevention fell to asylum attendants, as their work determined how, and with what success, alienists' suicide policy was implemented. © The 2011 Author.

An Effective Model of Institutional Taxation: Lunatic Asylums in Nineteenth-Century England

The compulsory establishment of large public lunatic asylums under Act of parliament in the nineteenth century to address the enormous increase in the number of the insane raised legal and practical challenges in relation to their status within the law of tax. As a result of their therapeutic and custodial objectives, these novel institutions required extensive landed property and very specific systems of governance, the fiscal consequences of which potentially undermined those very objectives. This article examines and analyses the nature and legal process of the application of the tax regime to these asylums, concluding that it constituted a rare and effective model of institutional taxation.

Leonard Smith, Lunatic hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830, Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine, New York and London, Routledge, 2007, pp. xvi, 288, illus., £70.00, $120.00 (hardback 978-0-415-37516-0).

Leonard Smith, Lunatic hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830, Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine, New York and London, Routledge, 2007, pp. xvi, 288, illus., £70.00, $120.00 (hardback 978-0-415-37516-0). - Volume 52 Issue 2

Gender, Self, and Play

By the middle of the nineteenth century, women constituted the majority of cases in public lunatic asylums. Uncontrolled sexuality was diagnosed as a symptom of insanity. The root of this malady wa...

"Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody": Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth-Century England (review)

"Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody": Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth-Century England (review)

"Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody": Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth-Century England (review)

"Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody": Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth-Century England (review)

Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody. Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth‐century England

List of Illustrations - Acknowledgements - List of Abbreviations - Introduction. 1. The rise of the public asylum. 2. Asylum management. 3. 'Waste stuff': Peopling the asylum. 4. 'The most essential instruments': From keepers to attendants. 5. Inside the asylum. 6. Treatment and care. 7. Useful occupation. 8. With due restraint - Conclusions: In pursuit of cure - Bibliography - Index.

Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody. Public Lunatic Asylums in Early Nineteenth-Century England. By L. D. Smith. (Pp. 310; £55.00.) Leicester University Press: Leicester. 1999.

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Leonard D Smith, ‘Cure, comfort and safe custody’: public lunatic asylums in early nineteenth-century England, London and New York, Leicester University Press, 1999, pp. ix, 310, illus., £55.00 (0-7185-0094-6).

Leonard D Smith, ‘Cure, comfort and safe custody’: public lunatic asylums in early nineteenth-century England, London and New York, Leicester University Press, 1999, pp. ix, 310, illus., £55.00 (0-7185-0094-6). - Volume 44 Issue 4

Close confinement in a mighty prison: Thomas Bakewell and his campaign against public asylums, 1810-1830

Thomas Bakewell, the proprietor of Spring Vale private asylum in Staffordshire, was an outspoken critic of the movement to develop public lunatic asylums. The County Asylums Act of 1808 encouraged the building of asylums for pauper lunatics. Bakewell contended that the system under which large public asylums operated would lead to a failure of the therapeutic intentions of those who projected them. He campaigned vigorously over a twenty year period against the concept and the practices of these asylums, and argued for a fundamental change in state policy toward the insane. He advocated an alternative system of state run curative hospitals, to replace institutions that were largely custodial in their orientation.

L’asile public des aliénées de Bordeaux : hygiénisme en psychiatrie et rationalisme architectural

The public lunatic asylum at Bordeaux ; psychiatric hygiemsm and architectural rationalism. In 1885, the board of commissioners of the Saint-Jean lunatic asylum at Bordeaux recognised the degradation of the conditions in which the mentally sick were confined in this hospital, and decided to transfer the institution to another property, on the outskirts of the city, the Château Picon. The Château itself was set aside for the wealthy patients whilst an entirely new asylum was constructed for the poor. The architect chosen was Jean-Jacques Valleton (1841-1916), a pupil of Abadie. This architect had studied the theories of his time on mental health and was particularly inspired by a text written in 1818 by J. Esquirol, head doctor at the Charenton asylum. He also studied asylums built in France and England. The construction work started in 1887 and was completed in 1890. The article describes the new buildings and the way they were arranged in isolated pavilions, each one corresponding with a defined category of mental illness : slight, tranquil convalescent, semi-tranquil, semi-agitated, agitated, furious, epileptic. A circulation gallery ran through the ensemble, with the pavilions branching off it like teeth from a pair of combs. The decoration, of Gothic inspiration, is very muted, in keeping with theories on mental health at the time which had long since denounced the pernicious influence of sculpted motifs on the mentally deranged.

Descriptions of schizophrenia in the psychiatry of Georgian Britain: John Haslam and James Tilly Matthews

John Haslam's description of James Tilly Matthews is the earliest clear description of schizophrenia in British psychiatric writing. Matthew's life and symptomatology are described. The reasons why there are few unambiguous contemporary accounts of schizophrenia are explored. Schizophrenia was probably first described in Britain during the Georgian period because of the growth of the public lunatic asylum, combined with an improvement in the style of case description.

On the Separate Care and Special Medical Treatment of the Acute and Curable Cases in Asylums; with Proposals and Suggestions for a Detached Hospital, for special purposes, in Connection with every large Public Lunatic Asylum

The principal arguments that may be brought forward against my proposal are—1st, that it is impracticable and inadvisable, as suggested by Dr. Conolly; and 2nd, that it would entail a considerable increase of expenditure.

On the Separate Care and Special Medical Treatment of the Acute and Curable Cases in Asylums; with Proposals and Suggestions for a Detached Hospital, for special purposes, in connection with every large Public Lunatic Asylum

Throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom, from the “Dan” of Inverness to the “Beersheba” of Bodmin, if there is one universal wail, and one that is more continuously and persistently than any other given vent to in asylum reports, it is that which refers to the fact that our asylums are becoming, day by day, more and more transformed into receptacles for the care of the insane rather than hospitals for the cure of insanity, and that the more important and paramount object in view is being gradually swallowed up and thwarted under circumstances over which, at present, we seem to have but very insufficient control. Coincidently with this general lament, we find that the separate care and treatment of the chronic and harmless cases in asylums, in some less expensive manner, is urging itself into a prominent position—as a desirable object to be attained for certain economic and other reasons; and it is, to my mind, a matter for some considerable regret that, at the present time, our efforts seem, apparently, to be directed principally, if not entirely, in this channel, to the comparative neglect of the more important and paramount object to which I have referred. That is to say, of the two principal objects at present more particularly engaging our attention, such practical steps as are being taken are rather in the direction of securing a cheaper care of the incurable great majority than towards effecting the cure of the small minority, which I am sanguine enough to believe it is within our power to recall more largely to a state of health, if only more determined and special efforts be made in such a grand and worthy undertaking. Of course institutions for the insane must ever continue to fulfil their desirable function as asylums or safety-houses, and I certainly have no wish to underrate the importance of endeavouring to effect, as far as possible, such economical reforms as may be brought about by the separate and less expensive care and treatment of the chronic and incurable cases of insanity, which are of interest principally (and deservedly so) from a humane point of view; nor do I but consider that the care of the great majority must ever, very largely and very properly, engage attention in Public Asylums; but I do desire, at the present time, to lift up my humble voice in deprecation of the pre-eminence of the practical efforts that are now being made in this direction over those being made to secure a greater rescue of curable cases from life-long insanity, which, after all, should be the object most worthy of the special attention and best energies of the Asylum Physician. Indeed, the separate care of the chronic and incurable majority cannot but hasten the advent of a system, of separate and special treatment of the curable minority, which I am now desirous of advocating.

On the Use of Education and Training in the Treatment of the Insane in Public Lunatic Asylums.

On the Use of Education and Training in the Treatment of the Insane in Public Lunatic Asylums.

On the Use of Education and Training in the Treatment of the Insane in Public Lunatic Asylums.

On the Use of Education and Training in the Treatment of the Insane in Public Lunatic Asylums.

The Overgrowth of our Public Lunatic Asylums

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The Necessity of Insanity as a Branch of Medical Education

The last Public Lunatic Asylum Act, 16 and 17, Vict., c. 97, passed in 1853, “For the regulation of those institutions, and for the admission &c. of pauper lunatics, wandering lunatics, whether paupers or not; or lunatics, not paupers, not wandering, and who are not under proper care and control; and also lunatics who are cruelly treated or neglected by any person having charge of them, further provides for the medical visitation in every quarter ending with March, June, September, and December, of pauper lunatics and idiots who are not in any asylum or house licensed for the reception of lunatics.” In the New Lunatic Asylums Bill, introduced this Session, by the Right Hon. Mr. Walpole, there is but one amendment affecting the public portion, which has relation to the medical certificate. The medical practitioner who is called by order of a justice to examine a supposed lunatic, is to certify not only that the person is of unsound mind or an idiot, but that he is also a proper subject to be taken charge of in the asylum, and he must also give his reasons for coming to such conclusion; firstly, from facts which he has observed himself; and, secondly, from facts communicated to him by others. These are usually the causes which have led to the inquiry of insanity, and it is of the greatest importance that he should make no confusion between those two classes of facts; he should give an account of every thing that is material in the certificate.