Leonard Smith – författare

Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830 constitutes the first comprehensive study of the philanthropic asylum system in Georgian England. Using original research and drawing upon a wide range of expertise on the history of mental health this book demonstrates the crucial role of the lunatic hospitals in the early development of a national system of psychiatric institutions.

These hospitals were to form an essential historical link in the emergence of a national system of institutional provision for mentally disordered people. They provided important prototypes for the subsequent development of a network of state-sponsored lunatic asylums during the nineteenth century.

This is an impressive volume which covers various areas including:

This book will interest specialist historians as well as mental health professionals and people interested in local and regional studies.

Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830 constitutes the first comprehensive study of the philanthropic asylum system in Georgian England. Using original research and drawing upon a wide range of expertise on the history of mental health this book demonstrates the crucial role of the lunatic hospitals in the early development of a national system of psychiatric institutions.

These hospitals were to form an essential historical link in the emergence of a national system of institutional provision for mentally disordered people. They provided important prototypes for the subsequent development of a network of state-sponsored lunatic asylums during the nineteenth century.

This is an impressive volume which covers various areas including:

This book will interest specialist historians as well as mental health professionals and people interested in local and regional studies.

When he is instructed by God to sacrifice his son Isaac, he heads on the mission with the hope that God will inform him that a mistake has been made and that his sons life will be saved. But Gods intervention does not come as expected, and Abrahams life takes a turn to the road less travelled.

Abrahams story as told in A Dysfunctional Legacy depicts the vaunted promises made to Abraham that have seemingly faded by the time of the death of his grandson, Jacob.

This book examines the origins and early development of private mental health-care in England, showing that the current spectacle of commercially-based participation in key elements of service provision is no new phenomenon. In 1815, about seventy per cent of people institutionalised because of insanity were being kept in private ‘madhouses’. The opening four chapters detail the emergence of these madhouses and demonstrate their increasing presence in London and across the country during the long eighteenth century. Subsequent chapters deal with specific aspects in greater depth - the insane patients themselves, their characteristics, and the circumstances surrounding admissions; the madhouse proprietors, their business activities, personal attributes and professional qualifications or lack of them; changing treatment practices and the principles that informed them. Finally, the book explores conditions within the madhouses, which ranged from the relatively enlightened to theseriously defective, and reveals the experiences, concerns and protests of their many critics.