From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency

David Wright is Wellcome Lecturer in the History of Medicine at the University of Nottingham., Anne Digby is Professor of Social History at Oxford Brookes University.

'This book helps to fill an enormous gap in social history.' - University of Salford'A good resource for students. It brings together an overview of changing perceptions, terminology, attitudes and provisions over centuries.' - Dorothy Atkinson, The Open University'This book is an excellent resource for anyone involved in supporting people with learning disabilities.' - Nursing Times'Some fascinating and also very moving descriptions.' - Community Care

• Chapter 1 Contexts and Perspectives, Anne Digby; Chapter 2 Mental Handicap in Medieval and Early Modern England, Richard Neugebauer; Chapter 3 Idiocy, the Family and the Community in Early Modern North-East England, Peter Rushton; Chapter 4 Identifying and Providing for the Mentally Disabled in Early Modern london, Jonathan Andrews; Chapter 5 The Psychopolitics of Learning and Disability in Seventeenth-Century Thought, C.F. Goodey; Chapter 6 ‘Childlike in his Innocence’, David Wright; Chapter 7 The Changing Dynamic of Institutional Care, David Gladstone; Chapter 8 Institutional Provision for the Feeble-Minded in Edwardian England, Mark Jachon; Chapter 9 Girls, Deficiency and Delinquency, Pamela Cox; Chapter 10 Family, Community, and State, Mathew Thomson;