Publication:

Customers and Patrons of the Mad-Trade: The Management of Lunacy in Eighteenth-Century London: With the Complete Text of John Monro's 1766 Case Book (2003)

Author(s): Andrews J; Scull A

  • : Customers and Patrons of the Mad-trade

Notes: This research monograph, represents the 2nd of Andrews' collaborations with Andrew Scull, and further evidences his widening innternational profile in the field. Widely and very positively reviewed in the international academic press (e.g. Guardian, Journal of Social History, Social History of Medicine), it was assessed by Elaine Murphy as a work of 'impeccable scholarship ... [and] essential reading for social historians of the eighteenth century', and described in NEJM as 'historical research at its best'. It has been seen as a rare and 'remarkable' commentary on the leading eighteenth-century mad-doctor's medical practice, which has challenged standard prevailing interpretations of the character of this branch of medicine. Divining Monro's practice in particular from an extant case book, the monograph assesses not only the medico-cultural mindset, diagnostic practice and socio-professional milieu of the mad-doctor, but also does more than previous studies to identify the customers and patrons of his particular 'mad trade'. In addition, it contains a full, unexpurgated and comprehensively annotated edition of Monro's 1766 case book, rendering it not only an exemplary study of mad-doctoring, but a superb research and teaching resource for scholars in the field and for social historians and professional psychiatrists.

  • Short Title: Customers and Patrons of the Mad-trade
  • Series Title: Medicine and Society
  • Number of Pages: 450
  • Publisher: University of California Press
  • Publication type: Authored book
  • Bibliographic status: Published
    Staff

    Dr Jonathan Andrews
    Reader in the History of Psychiatry