Victorian Lunacy
Richard M. Bucke and the Practice of Late Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry

This 1986 book explores the theory and practice of late nineteenth-century psychiatry.

Samuel Edward Dole Shortt (Author)

9780521172820, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 February 2011

224 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.34 kg

Using the career of Richard M. Bucke at the London Asylum in Canada as its focus, this 1986 book explores the theory and practice of late nineteenth-century psychiatry. The study describes the medical context that nurtured Victorian alienists, while their professional sphere - the asylum – is considered as an autonomous social community, often at odds with the intentions of its ostensible masters. Psychiatric theory is discussed less as an objective body of biomedical knowledge than as a product of the social turmoil that characterized the final decades of the nineteenth century. Unlike many other studies of nineteenth-century psychiatry, this book does not restrict itself to a single national experience, but adopts an explicitly Anglo-American perspective. Rather than restricting attention to political or institutional factors, it accords major significance to the role of ideas in determining the character of late Victorian psychiatry.

List of tables
List of illustrations
Preface
Abbreviations
Note on primary sources
Introduction
1. The topography of a Victorian medical life
2. The human ecology of the London Asylum
3. Toward a secular physiology of mind
4. The social genesis of etiological speculation
5. Treatment tactics and professional aspirations
Epilogue
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Medicine: general issues [MB]