Madmen
By Roy Porter
2004
First Published
3.45
Average Rating
392
Number of Pages
What was it like to be insane in the Georgian England of Mary Wollstonecraft and Coleridge? 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 insanity in 1808? The best-selling popular historian, Roy Porter, looks at the bizarre and savage practices used by doctors for 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 also reveals how Bethlem—the London asylum created to care for the mentally sick of the capital—was riddled with sadism and embezzlement, and if that wasn’t dehumanizing enough, ogling sightseers were permitted entry—for a fee of course.
Avg Rating
3.45
Number of Ratings
49
5 STARS
24%
4 STARS
27%
3 STARS
29%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
10%
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Author
Roy Porter
Author · 22 books
Roy's books cover several fields: the history of geology, London, 18th-Century British ideas and society, medicine, madness, quackery, patients and practitioners, literature and art, on which subjects (and others) he published over 200 books are articles. List of works can be found @ wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy\_Porter )
