'Am I mad?': the Windham case and Victorian resistance to psychiatry. Issue 4 (December 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Degerman, Dan
• Is Part Of: History of psychiatry. Volume 30:Issue 4(2019)
• Page Start: 457
• Page End: 468
• Publication Date: 2019-12
• Subjects: Anti-psychiatry -- expert testimony -- insanity -- law -- medicalization -- newspapers -- 19th century; Psychiatry -- History -- Periodicals; Mental illness -- History -- Periodicals; 616.89009
• DOI: 10.1177/0957154X19867059
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0957-154X

Abstract

This article revisits the notorious trial of William Windham, a wealthy young man accused of lunacy. The trial in 1861–2 saw the country's foremost experts on psychological medicine very publicly debate the concepts, symptoms and diagnosis of insanity. I begin by surveying the trial and the testimonies of medical experts. Their disparate assessments of Windham evoked heated reactions in the press and Parliament; these reactions are the focus of the second section. I then proceed to examine criticism of psychiatry in the newspapers more generally in the 1860s, outlining the political resistance to psychiatry and the responses of some leading psychiatrists. In conclusion, I consider what this says about the politics of medicalization at the time.