Madmen by Roy Porter
What was it like to be insane in the Georgian England of Mary Wollstonecraft and Coleridge (himself afflicted with madness?) How were our eighteenth-century ancestors confined and how were they treated by the fledgling psychiatric 'profession'? Indeed, how was the most famous mad person of the century - Shelley's 'old, mad, blind, despised king' George III - treated before his final descent into senility in 1808? Best-selling popular historian Roy Porter looks at the bizarre and savage practices of mad-doctors treating those afflicted by 'manias', ranging from huge doses of opium, blood-letting and cold-water immersion to beatings, confinement in cages and blistering. The author reveals how Bethlem - the London asylum created to care for the capital's mentally sick - was riddled with sadism and embezzlement, and if that wasn't dehumanising enough, jeering, ogling sightseers were permitted entry - for a fee of course.
Roy Porter zahlt zu den renommiertesten Medizinhistorikern der Welt. Er war Professor fur Sozialgeschichte der Medizin am Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London und hat zahlreiche Bucher zu medizin- und sozialgeschichtlichen Themen verfasst und herausgegeben. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte waren die Medizin des 18. Jahrhunderts, die Geschichte der Psychiatrie und die Geschichte der Quacksalberei. Dietrich von Engelhardt charakterisiert ihn in seinem Geleitwort zum vorliegenden Buch so: >>Porter, produktiv und vital im Gesprach, im Vortrag wie im literarischen Schaffen, ist ein profunder und geistreicher Kenner der historischen Entwicklung der Medizin und gehort zu jenen Medizinhistorikern der Gegenwart, die stets die immanenten Dimensionen der Medizin mit den sozialkulturellen Hintergrunden in Verbindung bringen.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780752437309 |
| ISBN 10 | 0752437305 |
| Title | Madmen |
| Author | Roy Porter |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | The History Press Ltd |
| Year published | 2006-03-01 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |