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Article ID: CBB001320330

The Bones of the Insane (2013)

Wallis, Jennifer (Author)

History of Psychiatry
Volume: 24
Pages: 196-211
Publication date: 2013
Language: English

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Mental disorders and diseases Psychiatric hospitals Psychiatry Patients Bone and bones Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment Science and culture 19th century 20th century, early England

This article examines alienist explanations for fracture among British asylum patients in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. A series of deaths in asylums came to light in the 1870s which, in placing the blame for such incidents on asylum staff, called for a response from the psychiatric profession. This response drew upon other medical fields and employed novel pathological techniques to explain why fractures occurred among the insane, in many cases aligning bone fragility with particular forms of insanity (namely, General Paralysis of the Insane). Although such research aimed to provide a medical explanation for the `fracture death', it also called into question the value of pathological research and the utility of quantitative measurement in understanding mental disease.

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Description A study of fractures among British asylum patients in the late 19th to early 20th centuries.

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