Undertaker of the mind : John Monro and mad-doctoring in eighteenth-century England / Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Andrews, Jonathan, 1961-

Contributor:

Scull, Andrew, 1947-

Series:

Medicine and society ; 11.

Medicine and society ; 11

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Monro, John, 1715-1791.

Monro, John.

Psychiatrists--England--Biography.

Psychiatrists.

Psychiatry--History--18th century.

Psychiatry.

Mentally ill--England--Case studies.

Mentally ill.

Bethlem Royal Hospital (London, England).

History.

England.

Genre:

Case studies.

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xxii, 364 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2001]

Summary:

As visiting physician to betheem hospital, the archetypal "Bedlam" and Britain's first (and for hundreds of years only) public institution for the insane, Dr. John Monro (1715-1791) was a celebrity in his own day. Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull call him a "connoisseur of insanity, this high priest of the trade in lunacy." Although the basics of his life and career are well known, this study is the first to explore in depth Monro's colorful and contentious milieu. Mad-doctoring grew into a recognized, if not entirely respectable, profession during the eighteenth century, and so many generations of Monros were affiliated with Bethlem that they practically seemed to serve by divine right. Their rule there may have been far from absolute, since attending physicians were in reality employees of the governors who controlled public hospitals, but in the same period John Monro and other mad-doctors became entrepreneurs and owners of private madhouses and were consulted by the rich and famous.

Monro's close social connections with members of the aristocracy and gentry, as well as with medical professionals, politicians, and divines, guaranteed him a significant place in the social, political, cultural, and intellectual worlds of his time. His appearance as an expert witness in one of eighteenth-century London's most notorious murder trials was but one of many instances when he was called upon for courtroom testimony. The authors effectively sort through opinions and counter-opinions, clarifying society's customs and attitudes and biases along with the treatments afforded to the insane. We may not think much of chains, emetics, and slender diets as mental therapy. Even more distasteful is the way in which lunatics were put on public display in the madhouses for all to see (and, not infrequently, to torment), a custom that reached its apogee in Monro's time. But he, like most of his contemporaries, accepted these practices; what to us are blatant abuses and cruelties began yielding to the protests of reformers only late in his tenure, and then not at his initiative.

What the authors make clear is that Monro, a serious physician neither reactionary nor enlightened in his methods, was the outright epitome of the mad-trade as it existed then, esteemed in some quarters and ridiculed in others. Andrews and Scull draw on an astonishing array of visual materials and verbal sources that include the diaries, family papers, and correspondence of some of England's wealthiest and best-connected citizens. The book is also distinctive in the coverage it affords to the individual case histories of Monro's patients, including such prominent contemporary figures as the Earls Ferrers and Orford, the religious "enthusiast" Alexander Cruden, and the "mad" King George III, as well as his crazy would-be assassin, Margaret Nicholson. The fifty illustrations, expertly annotated and integrated with the text, will be a revelation to many readers. Not only historians but anyone interested in ideas of mental illness and practices of mad-doctoring through the years will find Undertaker of the Mind absorbing reading.

Contents:

1. John Monro: The Making of a Mad-Doctor 1

Forging the Early Career 3

The Mad-Doctor and the Throne of Folly: John Monro at Bethlem and Bridewell 13

Monro and the Great Bedlam Exhibition 20

How to Treat a Bedlamite 28

2. The "Real Use" of Discussing Madness: The Great Lunacy Debate 43

Rivals in Madness: John Monro, William Battie, and St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics 45

A Very Public Quarrel 52

Judging a Debate 59

A Cautious Rapprochement 70

3. Madness in Their Methodism: Religious Enthusiasm, the Mad-Doctors, and the Case of Alexander Cruden 73

Opposing "Spiritual Physick": The Monros and "Methodical" Madness 75

Providence versus the Mad-Doctors: Alexander the Corrector and the Monros 93

The "Madman" and His Mad-Doctors 107

Cruden's Final Call from God 111

A Last Judgment of Cruden's Case 112

4. Mad as a Lord: Monro and the Case of the Earl of Orford 117

Lunacy and the Moneyed Classes 119

The Madness of a Whig Grandee 123

How to Treat a Lord 131

Lord Orford Recovers His Wits

and Loses Them Again 139

5. Mansions of Misery: Mad-Doctors and the Mad-Trade 143

Great Britain a Great Bedlam: The Wider Market for the Mad-Business 145

John Monro and the Private Mad-Business 160

For the Best and the Worst Purposes? Monro, Madhouses, and False Confinement 170

Monro Becomes Part of the Business 179

6. Murder Most Foul, Madness Most High: The Courtroom, the Stateroom, and the Misty Summits of the Mad-Doctor's Expertise 191

A Notorious Murder: The "Ferocious" Earl Ferrers 193

The Mad-Doctor, Mad Meg, and State Committals to Bethlem 215

The Mad-Doctor and the Mad King: The Royal Malady and the End of Monro's Career 254.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-355) and index.

ISBN:

0520231511

OCLC:

45963180