Social History of Medicine Advance Access originally published online on June 3, 2008
Social History of Medicine 2008 21(2):237-252; doi:10.1093/shm/hkn030
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‘Your Very Thankful Inmate’: Discovering the Patients of an Early County Lunatic Asylum
* Centre for the History of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. E-mail: l.d.smith{at}bham.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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Recent studies of the historical development of lunatic asylums have increasingly sought to gain access to the experiences and perspectives of patients and their families. Generally, historians have had to rely mainly on data extracted from admissions records or casebooks. With one or two notable exceptions, little material has survived emanating directly from patients. This article draws largely on a collection of correspondence from the Gloucester Asylum in the period 1827 to 1843. Most of the letters were written by patients' relatives to the medical superintendent. They offer valuable insights into a range of issues—circumstances that led to admission; the quality of relationships between patients and their families; interactions between community and institution; perceptions of life in the asylum; the processes of recovery, discharge and after-care. It becomes clear that, rather than the asylum being a closed and isolated institution, there was ongoing dialogue between patients, relatives, and medical officers, both to exchange information and also to promote recovery, discharge, and re-settlement in the community.
Keywords: insanity; lunatic asylum; correspondence; patient perspectives; families; admission and discharge; institution and community