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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Idiocy, Imbecility and Insanity in Victorian Society: Caterham Asylum, 1867-1911

Idiocy, Imbecility and Insanity in Victorian Society: Caterham Asylum, 1867-1911

Eastoe, Stef

Paperback

Series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective

Medical ReferenceGeneral World HistoryBritish History

ISBN10: 3030273377
ISBN13: 9783030273378
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: Aug 26 2021
Pages: 212
Weight: 0.68
Height: 0.53 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English
This book explores the understudied history of the so-called 'incurables' in the Victorian period, the people identified as idiots, imbeciles and the weak-minded, as opposed to those thought to have curable conditions. It focuses on Caterham, England's first state imbecile asylum, and analyses its founding, purpose, character, and most importantly, its residents, innovatively recreating the biographies of these people. Created to relieve pressure on London's overcrowded workhouses, Caterham opened in September 1870. It was originally intended as a long-stay institution for the chronic and incurable insane paupers of the metropolis, more commonly referred to as idiots and imbeciles. This purpose instantly differentiates Caterham from the more familiar, and more researched, lunatic asylums, which were predicated on the notion of cure and restoration of the senses. Indeed Caterham, built following the welfare and sanitary reforms of the late 1860s, was an important feature of the Victorian institutional landscape, and it represented a shift in social, medical and political responsibility towards the care and management of idiot and imbecile paupers.

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