This article revisits the notorious trial of William Windham, a wealthy young man accused of lunacy. The trial in 1861–2 saw the country’s foremost experts on psychological medicine very publicly debate the concepts, symptoms and diagnosis of insanity. I begin by surveying the trial and the testimonies of medical experts. Their disparate assessments of Windham evoked heated reactions in the press and Parliament; these reactions are the focus of the second section. I then proceed to examine criticism of psychiatry in the newspapers more generally in the 1860s, outlining the political resistance to psychiatry and the responses of some leading psychiatrists. In conclusion, I consider what this says about the politics of medicalization at the time.
...More
Book
David W. Jones;
(2015)
Disordered Personalities and Crime: An analysis of the history of moral insanity
(/isis/citation/CBB500109603/)
Book
José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez;
(2019)
¿Entre el fiscal y el verdugo?: Mateu Orfila i Rotger (1787-1853) y la toxicología del siglo XIX
(/isis/citation/CBB107113642/)
Book
Haber, Carole;
(2013)
The Trials of Laura Fair: Sex, Murder, and Insanity in the Victorian West
(/isis/citation/CBB001420198/)
Article
David W Jones;
(2017)
Moral insanity and psychological disorder: the hybrid roots of psychiatry
(/isis/citation/CBB830638113/)
Article
Nicholas Duvall;
(2017)
‘If experts differ, what are we to do in the matter?’ The Medico-legal Investigation of Gunshot Wounds in a 1927 Scottish Murder Trial
(/isis/citation/CBB537944644/)
Article
Hasson, Ezra;
(2010)
Capacity to Marry: Law, Medicine and Conceptions of Insanity
(/isis/citation/CBB000932823/)
Article
Mar Cuenca-Lorente;
(2017)
Poisons, Trials and Experts: Pere Mata I Fontanet (1811–1877) and Spanish Nineteenth-Century Toxicology
(/isis/citation/CBB713181362/)
Article
Natalia Magliocchetti;
(2017)
Il Sistema informativo per la salute mentale del Ministero della Salute
(/isis/citation/CBB627692545/)
Article
Enric J. Novella;
(2018)
Alexandre Brierre De Boismont and the Limits of the Psychopathological Gaze
(/isis/citation/CBB543407378/)
Article
Christen, Arden G.;
Christen, Joan A.;
(2003)
The 1850 Webster/Parkman Trial: Dr. Keep's Forensic Evidence
(/isis/citation/CBB000932356/)
Book
David A. Guba Jr;
(2020)
Taming Cannabis: Drugs and Empire in Nineteenth-Century France
(/isis/citation/CBB831549564/)
Article
Peter Carpenter;
(2022)
The case of Dr Pownall – mad doctor, sane patient and insane murderer
(/isis/citation/CBB060677524/)
Article
José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez;
(2021)
Lead Poisoning in France around 1840: Managing Proofs and Uncertainties in Laboratories, Courtrooms, and Workplaces
(/isis/citation/CBB619372597/)
Thesis
Rimke, Heidi Marie;
(2005)
Ungovernable Subjects: A Radical Genealogy of Moral Insanity
(/isis/citation/CBB001560822/)
Book
Brookes, Barbara;
Thomson, Jane;
(2001)
Unfortunate folk: Essays on mental health treatment, 1863-1992
(/isis/citation/CBB000101904/)
Article
Philippe Huneman;
(2017)
From a religious view of madness to religious mania: the Encyclopédie, Pinel, Esquirol
(/isis/citation/CBB013167715/)
Book
Chiang, Howard Hsueh-Hao;
(2014)
Psychiatry and Chinese History
(/isis/citation/CBB001422492/)
Book
Reaume, Geoffrey;
(2000)
Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1770-1940
(/isis/citation/CBB000101654/)
Book
Melling, Joseph;
Forsythe, Bill;
(1999)
Insanity, Institutions and Society, 1800-1914: A Social History of Madness in Comparative Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB000111209/)
Book
Torrey, Edwin Fuller;
Miller, Judy;
(2001)
Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present
(/isis/citation/CBB000101575/)
Be the first to comment!