Overview
- Explores the understudied histories of asylum patients identified as incurably insane and how society, government and the medical profession responded to this group
- Focuses on the history of Caterham, England’s first state imbecile asylum, unlike other lunatic asylums where so-called curable patients were treated
- Challenges the notion of incurability and chronicity as sources of shame and stigma within Victorian and Edwardian economies of welfare
Part of the book series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective (MHHP)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
“Eastoe has produced a thoughtful, generous, and rich monograph that is well informed and deserves a wide readership beyond the academy. Above all, she raises important questions around how health and welfare systems approach the blurred divisions between acute and long-term care, which are as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century.” (Louise Hide, Victorian Studies, Vol. 64 (3), 2022)
“Idiocy, Imbecility and Insanity in Victorian Society starts with a stated goal to challenge works that emphasize narratives of repression and violence in the asylum. This is grounded in a both a desire to find the complexity of the patient experience and in the fact that the records do not record much explicit abuse at Caterham.” (Amy Milne-Smith, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 60 (2), April, 2021)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Stef Eastoe is a social and cultural historian, who has taught courses on the social history of medicine at several British universities. She specializes in the history of idiocy, welfare, and Victorian institutions, and has had work published in Journal of Victorian Culture and Landscape Research.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Idiocy, Imbecility and Insanity in Victorian Society
Book Subtitle: Caterham Asylum, 1867–1911
Authors: Stef Eastoe
Series Title: Mental Health in Historical Perspective
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27335-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27334-7Published: 20 February 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27337-8Published: 26 August 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-27335-4Published: 19 February 2020
Series ISSN: 2634-6036
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6044
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 212
Number of Illustrations: 15 b/w illustrations
Topics: Social History, History of Britain and Ireland, History of Medicine, Psychiatry, History of Science, Urban History