Article ID: CBB791023960

‘Noisy, restless and incoherent’: puerperal insanity at Dundee Lunatic Asylum (2017)

unapi

Puerperal insanity has been described as a nineteenth-century diagnosis, entrenched in contemporary expectations of proper womanly behaviour. Drawing on detailed study of establishment registers and patient case notes, this paper examines the puerperal insanity diagnosis at Dundee Lunatic Asylum between 1820 and 1860. In particular, the study aims to consider whether the class or social status of the patients had a bearing on how their conditions were perceived and rationalized, and how far the puerperal insanity diagnosis, coloured by the values assigned to it by the medical officers, may have been reserved for some women and not for others. This examination of the diagnosis in a Scottish community, suggesting a contrast in the way that middle-class and working-class women were diagnosed at Dundee, engages with and expands on work on puerperal insanity elsewhere.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB791023960/

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Authors & Contributors
Andrews, Jonathan
Philo, Chris
Appelquist, Malin
Peschier, Diana
Dickson, Sheila
Cahalan, Susannah
Concepts
Mental disorders and diseases
Psychiatry
Psychiatric hospitals
Medicine and society
Medicine and gender
Diagnosis
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
Scotland
United States
Great Britain
England
Zurich (Switzerland)
Québec (Canada)
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