Bejamin Hawkins - County Lunatic Asylum (General)

by Mike Pinchin , Bedford, England, Wednesday, June 18, 2014, 23:29 (3812 days ago) @ janethowell

These admission files (concerning the Sheffield area) give a good idea of the causes assigned to a person’s insanity in the late 19C and early 20C. Most are cursory and many bear all the hallmarks of having been plucked out of the air as a convenient peg to hang the observed condition on. A high proportion is simply marked as “unknown” and, amongst the data, threatened suicide does not figure to any degree. I think the conclusion to be drawn from this and other data is that, at the time, any behaviour which deviated from the norm or the expected could be grounds for committal. I suppose, one hundred years or more later, we should not be too judgemental on a science in its infancy.

https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/libraries/archives-and-local-studies/research-guides/menta...

On the specific point of the committal of women, in particular suicide and “puerperal insanity”, there are a couple of articles which throw some light on the attitudes of the 19C.

http://www.nursing.manchester.ac.uk/ukchnm/publications/seminarpapers/maternityandmadne...

http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/801/1/York10PhD.pdf page 77