Bloody technology: the sphygmograph in asylum practice. Issue 3 (September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wallis, Jennifer
• Is Part Of: History of psychiatry. Volume 28:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 297
• Page End: 310
• Publication Date: 2017-09
• Subjects: Blood -- medical technologies -- pharmacology -- physiology -- sphygmograph; Psychiatry -- History -- Periodicals; Mental illness -- History -- Periodicals; 616.89009
• DOI: 10.1177/0957154X17700292
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0957-154X

Abstract

The sphygmograph, an instrument to measure and visually chart the pulse, was used by a number of asylum researchers in the late nineteenth century in an attempt to better understand mental disease. In charting the use of such a medical technology in the asylum, this article explores the utility of a practice-oriented approach in the history of psychiatry – as a window onto the alienist profession and as a means of investigating how new medical technologies were assimilated into everyday practice.