The Confinement of the Insane
International Perspectives, 1800–1965

2003 collection of international essays exploring the rise of the lunatic asylum in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Roy Porter (Edited by), David Wright (Edited by)

9780521802062, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 August 2003

392 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 2.8 cm, 0.758 kg

Review of the hardback: 'This author never failed to provide a worthwhile read …' Journal of Psychological Medicine

The rise of the asylum constitutes one of the most profound, and controversial, events in the history of medicine. Academics around the world have begun to direct their attention to the origins of the confinement of those deemed 'insane', exploring patient records in an attempt to understand the rise of the asylum within the wider context of social and economic change of nations undergoing modernisation. Originally published in 2003, this edited volume brings together thirteen original research papers to answer key questions in the history of asylums. What forces led to the emergence of mental hospitals in different national contexts? To what extent did patient populations vary in terms of their psychiatric profile and socio-economic background? What was the role of families, communities and the medical profession in the confinement process? This volume therefore represents a landmark study in the history of psychiatry by examining asylum confinement in a global context.

Introduction Roy Porter
1. Insanity, institutions and society: the case of Robben Island Lunatic Asylum, 1846–1910 Harriet Deacon
2. The confinement of the insane in Switzerland, 1900–70: Cery and Bel-Air asylums Jacques Gasser and Geneviève Heller
3. Family strategies and medical power: 'voluntary' committal in a Parisian asylum, 1876–1914 Patricia E. Prestwich
4. The confinement of the insane in Victorian Canada: the Hamilton and Toronto asylums, c. 1861–91 David Wright, James Moran and Sean Gouglas
5. Passage to the asylum: the role of the police in committals of the insane in Victoria, Australia, 1848–1900 Catharine Coleborne
6. The 'Wittenauer Heilstätten' in Berlin: a case record study of psychiatric patients in Germany, 1919–60 Andrea Dörries and Thomas Beddies
7. Curative asylum, custodial hospital: the South Carolina lunatic asylum and state hospital, 1828–1920 Peter McCandless
8. The state, family, and the insane in Japan, 1900–45 Akihito Suzuki
9. The limits of psychiatric reform in Argentina, 1890–1946 Jonathan D. Ablard
10. Becoming mad in revolutionary Mexico: mentally ill patients at the General Insane Asylum, Mexico, 1910–30 Cristina Rivera-Garza
11. Psychiatry and confinement in India Sanjeev Jain
12. Confinements and colonialism in Nigeria Jonathan Sadowsky
13. 'Ireland's crowded madhouses': the institutional confinement of the insane in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland Elizabeth Malcolm
14. The administration of insanity in England, 1800–70 Elaine Murphy.

Subject Areas: Psychiatry [MMH], History of medicine [MBX], Social & cultural history [HBTB]