Mental Health and Learning Disability Home Page   Other word lists Mental Health History Words The index on the left has yellow entries for items on this page and white for entries on other pages. The first part of this page classifies asylums and patients in the nineteenth century. This is followed by a list of words in date order

ASYLUMS

It is convenient to divide asylums regulated by the Lunacy Commission into five basic groups:

licensed houses county asylums hospitals workhouse asylums single houses

See also Institutions 1890 & 1913

Licensed Houses.

In the history of English asylums a "licensed house" is not a place for drinking alcohol (the commonest meaning of the phrase), but a place licensed to receive lunatics under one of the Acts of Parliament (from 1774 onwards) passed to control such places. London houses and county houses were licensed by different authorities

Licensed houses were usually privately owned asylums or madhouses. Some publicly owned asylums chose to be licensed, however, and there was a public involvement in others.

Houses receiving only one patient at a time did not require a licence. I call these Single Houses.

I use madhouse only for private asylums although it was sometimes used for hospitals or county asylums. As my use is to refer to the houses irrespective of whether they were licensed, I use it throughout - whereas it was not in respectful contemporary use after the early 19th century.

County Asylums County asylums were rate funded (*) and built or provided under one of the County Asylum Acts, the first of which was passed in 1808. In the term county asylum I also include a few institutions "made county asylums" by special Acts, and Borough Asylums built or provided under the 1845 County Asylums Act or one of its successors. (*) In whole or in part. Some were supported partly by voluntary subscriptions and when it is necessary to distinguish I call them County/Subscription Asylums.

The early county asylums included Bedfordshire, Norfolk, Lancashire, West Riding of Yorkshire, Cornwall, Suffolk, Cheshire, Middlesex, Dorset, Kent and Surrey. County/subscription asylums included Nottinghamshire Lunatic Asylum, Gloucester Lunatic Asylum, Staffordshire County Asylum and Leicestershire County Asylum. St Peter's Hospital, Bristol, Haverfordwest, and Hull Workhouse were made County Asylums by local Acts Borough asylums include Bristol, Haverfordwest, Birmingham, Leicester, Hull, Newcastle and Brighton

In 1858 there were only four borough asylums: Birmingham, Bristol, Haverfordwest and Hull. All except Birmingham were asylums that existed before 1845. Many more were constructed later in the century. See fuller list

Hospitals

The term hospitals covered a variety of institutions receiving lunatics that were neither licensed houses nor county asylums. Some were used exclusively for lunatics whilst others were general hospitals with accommodation for lunatics. The financial arrangements of hospitals varied considerably. In some patients were supported, wholly or in part, by voluntary contributions (*) and/or the income from endowments. In some the poorer patients were supported, in whole or in part, out of the charges of richer patients. It is convenient to include Bethlem and the Military and Naval Asylums, which had other funding, in the general category of hospitals. Bethlem was not subject to regulation by the lunacy commission until 1853. (*) Usually subscriptions. The subscribers elected the management committee of the Subscription Hospital. Registered Hospital Under the 1845 Lunacy Act (section 42), and subsequent Acts, hospitals receiving lunatics (except Bethlem) had to be registered with the Lunacy Commission. Hence the term "Registered Hospital". See Coton Hill

click for list of hospitals that opened in the 18th century Hospitals opening in the 19th century included Lincoln Lunatic Asylum - Northampton General Lunatic Asylum - Coton Hill Institution.

lunatics in workhouses: The Lunacy Commission (1845 on) monitored the treatment of pauper lunatics in all workhouses; including those they considered lunatic amongst the general workhouse population. See 1845 Lunacy Act section 111 and the sequence by which the commission gained powers)

Workhouse Asylums and Lunatic Wards: Several workhouses, however, contained wards exclusively used for lunatics and in some places a separate building (belonging to and administered by the local Poor Law authority) was used exclusively for the lunatics, or as a general hospital with lunatic wards.

For examples of workhouse asylums see Norwich Infirmary Bethel, Portsea Workhouse,, House of Industry, Carisbrook, Bath Union Workhouse, Stoke Damerel, Redruth Union Workhouse, Kingsland and Oswestry, Birmingham (Parish) Workhouse, Leicester Union Workhouse, Manchester Workhouse, Sheffield Workhouse. St Peter's Hospital, Bristol and Hull Workhouse were County Asylums under local Acts. Suffolk County Asylum had been a workhouse.

The 1845 County Asylums Act, section 8 provided for improvements to workhouse asylums and for workhouses to become asylums for the reception of chronic lunatics.

Lunacy Commission minutes on 5.2.1849 recorded the following workhouses with lunatic wards: Bath, Birmingham, Bristol (at Frenchay), Clifton, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne , Coventry, Greenwich, Nottingham, Plymouth, Portsea Island, Redruth, Sheffield, Devonport, Chatham, Brighton, Hull, and Cheltenham.

pauper farm a term used for a private workhouse. (See farm). At least one (Grove Hall) developed into a licensed house. See London pauper farms

Single Houses

A Single House is one where just one lunatic is confined for profit. Single Houses were only partially regulated by the Lunacy Commission. See Single Lunatics

home, single, domestic and asylum care It may be useful to distinguish between:

for some examples, read the biography of Mary Lamb

lodgings and/or single houses where the lunatic is confined in a house (not his or her original home), under the care of a paid attendant or attendants

mad houses and/or asylums where more than one lunatic is confined under the care of a paid attendant or attendants

We could also speak, loosely of domestic care as contrasted with asylum care where domestic care included home care, lodgings/single houses and cases where perhaps two or three lunatics lived with a family which was paid for the care. The houses with more than one lunatic needed to be licensed, but the kind of care might not differ from that in a single house.

In the nineteenth century (and earlier) some people provided services relating to this whole range of provision. For example, a physician (see Morison and Seymour for example) might visit at home were a person was confined by relatives. The same physician might recommend a paid attendant (keeper, nurse) who would keep guard over the patient. Alternatively the physician might recommend someone who would arrange single care in lodgings or might recommend a madhouse. In the case of attendants, single houses and madhouses, there would be a variation of financial arrangements between the physician and the attendants and the house. Often, the physician would receive a regular retainer for making recommendations.

Other words used for paid attendants in the early nineteenth century were keeper and nurse. Nurse was only used for a female attendant or keeper.

The law distinguished between pauper lunatics, who were maintained out of the poor rates, and non-pauper. It should be noted that there were many non-paupers received at similar charges to paupers, and maintained in similar conditions. Paupers were poor but non-paupers were not necessarily rich!

In the mid-19th century all workhouse asylums and most county asylums were exclusively occupied by paupers, although a few county asylums made some provision for others. Most licensed houses did not take paupers. Only a minority (the pauper houses) took both or (exceptionally) only paupers. The pauper houses, however, included the very largest, and as a result over half the lunatics in licensed houses were paupers. Hospitals received relatively few paupers.

Single and Chancery lunatics were generally members of rich families. The legal process that made someone a chancery lunatic was expensive and generally invoked in connection with the preservation of property. Single houses were one of the most expensive forms of confinement.

Single lunatics were those confined in premises where no other lunatic was kept at the same time. some were in single houses, but the majority were in the homes of relatives or some other person receiving no profit from the charge (**).

Single houses did not require a licence (references)

Until 1828 the admission of a single lunatic did not require a certificate, and no returns were made to the Physician Commission.

Certificates were required from 1828, but not, however, for confinement with the relative or the committee of a chancery lunatic where no profit was made.

The 1828 Madhouses Act also required notification of lunatics received into single houses, but until 1853 these returns were not sent to the commission as a whole and were confidential from the major part of the commission. They were therefore called the Private Return and the register they were entered in the Private Register (See 1828, 1832 and 1845)

Theoretically the commissioners could have visited a single lunatic after 1828 by obtaining the authority of the Lord Chancellor or Home Secretary (3S.4.13), but the first practical provisions for visiting were made in 1845 (5S.6) (**).

A 13th century statute: De Praerogativa Regis (On the King's Prerogative) gave the crown custody of the lands of natural fools and wardship of the property of the insane during their insanity. The process of establishing lunacy (before a jury) was sometimes known as a "commission of lunacy".

1464: Two examples of people being granted custody of the person and property of an idiot:

19.8.1464: "Grant to Henry Curteys of Grantham and his assigns of the custody of Alice Fyssh, who is an idiot, and of all her lands and tenements in Harreardby co Lincoln, and of all other lands and tenements held in chief which came into the King's hands by reason of her idiotcy as appears by an inquisition taken before John Burgh, escheator in the county of Lincoln, to hold the same during her life - By K."

3.9.1464: "Grant to the king's servitor Thomas Witham, chancellor of the Exchequer, of the custody of the body of Katharine Metcalf, late the wife of Edmund Metcalf, who has been an idiot from her birth, and of all her lands and tenements in the county of York and in Kingeston on Hull, to hold during her idiotcy without rendering anything to the king but finding a competant sustenance for her and supporting all charges - By K."

The examples are taken from the calendar of Patent Rolls for 4 Edward 4th, Part 1. They were sent to me by Alan Longbottom

By the 18th century the prerogative was exercised by the Lord Chancellor by virtue of the King's Manual (signature). By an expensive process in the court of Chancery (*) it was possible to have someone's sanity investigated and, if found insane, a committee appointed to administer the lunatic's property. The committee had the care of the property and person of the chancery lunatic. By 1890 the law distinguished between the committee controlling a lunatics property and the committee controlling his or her person.

The committee was likely to be the person who had applied for a writ to investigate sanity (Writ de lunatico inquirendo) (See Blackstone). There are surviving writs written on velum (See Henry Pearce)

A house that received chancery lunatics only (if any such existed apart from single houses) did not require a licence until 1828 (See 1774 Madhouse Act, section 1). Thereafter any house receiving two or more lunatics required one. (References)

Under the 1774, 1828 and 1832 Madhouses and 1845 Lunacy Acts, the reception of any patient into a licensed house required a certificate (*). No exception was made for chancery lunatics, but the commission could not release chancery lunatics it thought were improperly confined (see law). The commission received returns respecting chancery lunatics in licensed houses as they did for other patients (see law).

Under the 1828 Madhouses Act the Lord Chancellor received from the commission information on the distribution of chancery lunatics in licensed houses (see law) and in 1832 it was specifically stated that the commission could report their opinions on such lunatics to the Lord Chancellor (see law)

A large number of chancery lunatics were not in licensed houses, but with their relatives or committee, in single houses, or elsewhere.

• In 1844 there were 217 or 233 chancery lunatics in asylums:
  196 in licensed houses (80 in London houses)
  and there were 282 single lunatics under commission
  (1844 Report tables on pages 184, 185 and 194).

• In 1858 there were
  300 in asylums
  and about 300 elsewhere (See note ** about single lunatics)
  (1859-1860 SCHC 1.8.1859, Q2131, Q2140, Q2137)

Under the 1800 Criminal Lunatics Act provisions were made for the safe custody of persons:

a) charged with treason, murder or felony, who were acquitted on the grounds of insanity

b) indicted and found insane at the time of arraignment

c) brought before any criminal court to be discharged for want of prosecution who appeared insane

d) apprehended under circumstances denoting a derangement of mind and a purpose to commit an indictable offence

e) appearing to be insane and endeavouring to gain admittance to the royal presence by intrusion on one of the royal residences. (1844 Report p. 196)

Category (d) could be confined by a JP and his or her release was subject to certain restrictions.

Category (e) could be confined on the authority of the Lord Chancellor and if they were could only be released on his authority.

The 1840 Insane Prisoners Act authorized the transfer of any insane prisoner (*except civil prisoners) to a lunatic asylum, thus extending the criminal lunacy law to cases of misdemeanour. It applied to anyone confined under sentence of death, transportation or imprisonment, or under a charge of any offence, or for want of sureties to keep the peace, or to answer a criminal charge; or in consequence of any summary conviction, or other than civil process (1844 Report p.196).

If a prisoner appeared to be insane, two JPs were to hold an inquiry and, if they and the doctors found he was insane, the Home Secretary could order his transfer to an asylum. (Walker, 1968 p.205)

The 1913 Mental Deficiency Act defined four grades of Mental Defective. In each case the condition had to be present "from birth or from an early age".

1. idiots were people "so deeply defective in mind as to be unable to guard against common physical dangers"

2. imbeciles were not idiots, but were "incapable of managing themselves or their affairs, or, in the case of children, of being taught to do so."

3. feeble-minded people were neither idiots nor imbeciles, but
   If adults, their condition was "so pronounced that they require care, supervision, and control for their own protection or the protection of others"

   If children of school age, their condition was "so pronounced that they by reason of such defectiveness appear to be personally incapable of receiving proper benefit from instruction in ordinary schools"

4. moral defectives were people who, from an early age, displayed "some permanent mental defect coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities on which punishment had little or no effect"

Deficiency and defect are not distinguished (see forms below) Both imply a lack of something.

The above classification can be compared to the following analysis of mental retardation in the International Classification of Diseases (9th revision - 1975): (Mental retardation is defined as intellectual impairment starting in early childhood.)

317 Mild Mental Retardation
IQ = 50 to 70
synonyms include feeble-minded, moron, high grade defect, and mild mental subnormality

318.0 Moderate mental retardation
IQ = 35 to 49
synonyms: imbecile; moderate mental subnormality

318.1 Severe mental retardation
IQ = 20 to 34
synonym: severe mental subnormality

318.2 Profound mental retardation
IQ under 20
synonyms: idiocy; profound mental subnormality

INSTITUTIONS 1890 & 1913

section 341 of the 1890 Lunacy Act classifies institutions in the established way.

Institution for Lunatics: "an asylum, hospital, or licensed house"

Asylum: an asylum for lunatics provided by County or Borough, or by a union of Counties or Boroughs"

Hospital: any hospital or part of a hospital or other house or institution (not being an asylum) wherein lunatics are received and supported wholly or partly by voluntary contributions, or by any charitable bequest or gift, or by applying the excess of payments of some patients for or towards the support, provision or benefit of other patients"

The 1913 Act brought in a range of new terms. Section 71 (Interpretation) defines the following expressions (amongst others):

place of safety: "any workhouse or police station, any institution, any place of detention, and any hospital, surgery, or other suitable place, the occupier of which is willing to receive temporarily persons who may be taken to places of safety under this Act".

special school or class: "a special school or class within the meaning of the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act 1899

institution and institution for defectives: "a state institution or certified institution

State institution: "an institution for defectives of dangerous or violent propensities established by the Board under this Act"

certified institution: "an institution in respect of which a certificate has ben granted under this Act to the managers to receive defectives therein, and includes, subject to the provisions of this Act, any premises provided by a board of Guardians and approved under this Act.

certified house: "a house in which detectives are received by the owner thereof for his private profit, and in respect of which a certificate has been granted under this Act"

approved home: "any premises in which detectives are received and supported wholly or partly by voluntary contributions, or by applying the excess of payment of some patients for or towards the support of other patients, or a house in which defectives are received by the owner thereof for his private profit, and which has been approved by the Board under this Act"

institution for lunatics: "the same meaning as in the Lunacy Acts, 1890 to 1911"

"The expression board of guardians of a poor law union shall include the Metropolitan Asylums Board and any joint committee of a combination of unions constituted by order of the Local Government Board".

An area including London was administered separately from the rest of England and Wales with respect to lunacy (1774 onwards). This area is the "metropolitan" area whose madhouses were originally regulated by the Physician Commission and then the Metropolitan Commission. The rest of England and Wales is often spoken of as the "provinces" or the "counties". I use the terms London area and counties. The London Clerk is thus the clerk to the commissioners in the London area, the Counties Clerks are the clerks to the magistrates who visited madhouses in the counties. A London house is a licensed house in the London area. A county house is a licensed house in the counties. A county asylum, on the other hand, may be in London or the counties.

Words in Date Order

Old English: (before 1149)

The "Anglo-Saxon" words on which English is built do not appear to include any of the sex words sometimes so called. They do, however, include lewd

dumb: with dual meaning of stupid and mute in many Germanic languages.

borough originally a town (built area larger than a village), or one that was fortified, or one that had its own internal government. Later came to mean a town that had its own self-government given to it by charter from the king or queen (a municipal borough) or which sent representative/s to parliament (a parliamentary borough). In the 1845 County Asylums Act, a borough is defined (for the purposes of the Act) as "A borough, town or city corporate having a quarter sessions, recorder and clerk of the peace" (section 84). See borough asylums

broth Old English word for the liquid you get when you boil meat or fish in water plus (possibly) vegetables. The word has the same root as brew. Became soup (from the French) in Middle English. Broth is the basis of kitchen economy, carrying the virtuous essences of one day's cooking over to the next. In the mid eighteenth century the word stock was used to indicate this accumulation. In some nineteenth century institutions for the poor it became the basis of the diet. Food was served solid (boiled) one day, liquid the next, and so on. Water dissolved all knowledge of how much, or how little, nutrition, the inmates received. 1870 Dictionary: soup is a "decoction of flesh, broth"   diets in London pauper houses - diet at Haydock Lodge - diet at Lainston

fever: appears in Anglo Saxon translation of the Gospels about 1,000 AD. From the Latin febris. An illness associated with heat and, possibly, restlessness. See also ague. Andrew Boorde's Breviary of Health (1547) says a fever is an unnatural heat grounded in the heart and liver. With examples from 1546, it could also be used for states of intense nervous excitement, agitation or heat. In Dicken's 1836 description of a madman, youthful debauchery leads to a fever, and on to raving madness. The madman speaks of the fever that was to consume my brain.

gowk In northern Europe, words like gowk, gouch, qaukr and gough were used in imitation of the cuckoo. In southern Europe words like kokkux (Greek) cucu (Latin). Cuckoo succeeded gowk in Middle English. How far back the association with foolishness and/or staring goes is not clear. Dictionaries tend to place the association in the late 16th century. The associations of the bird are rich: lhude sing cuccu

leech: a black worm-like creature that lives in water and sucks blood from animals. A physician or healer, because doctors used leeches to draw blood from patients.

mad	See Blackstone

Old English meanings included 1) being insane or what modern psychiatry calls psychotic   2) foolish or unwise. By Middle English: it could be used for a mad dog (with rabbies). One could say someone was "mad about", meaning carried away by enthusiasm or desire; wildly excited or infatuated. or "mad with" meaning very angry; moved to uncontrollable rage; furious. The word madness is late middle English, when mad could also mean uncontrolled by reason or (wildly) irrational in demeanour or conduct

part: something which, with other parts, makes up a whole. By late Middle English could be used for 1) a person's share in a collective action - His or her function. 2) What an individual actor does in a theatrical play. See personality and role

pine Punishment; suffering or loss inflicted as punishment; specifically the sufferings of hell or purgatory. From this word developed pain and punish. It has a Latin origin: poena

pock or pocks which became pox: eruptions on the skin full of pus and also certain diseases that produce these, particularly smallpox. The pox (16th century on) is syphilis, often distinguished as the great pox, or French pox. Later, chickenpox and cowpox. Smallpox is caused by a virus: syphilis by a bacterium.

quake to shake or tremble quaker

seely from Germanic base meaning "luck, happiness" had the Old English meaning Happy, fortunate, lucky; favoured or blessed by God. In Middle English it gained other meanings: 1) Pious, 2) Harmless and deserving of sympathy, 3) Insignificant and frail. By late Middle English it had gained the meaning foolish, simple, silly. The word silly was an altered form that developed in late Middle English for deserving of pity. Meanings for silly that did not develop until the late 16th century include 1) Of very low intelligence 2) Lacking judgement, fatuous, foolish.

shire English administrative district, uniting several smaller districts called hundreds, ruled jointly by an ealdorman and sheriff, who presided in the shire-moot. Moot Hall or Mote House became the name for what we now call a Town Hall (See 1890 romanticisation by William Morris). The Normans (from 1066) continued to rule England in shires, using Anglo-French counté, Anglo-Latin comitatus to describe them. These words were absorbed into English as county. John Speed's Pocket Atlas of 1627 contains maps of thirty-nine counties - clicking on them will take you to the asylums in the county - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Chester, Cornwall, Cumberland and Westmoreland (together), Derbyshire, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, Durham, Essex, , Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutlandshire, Shropshire, Somersetshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire, Yorkshire. All of Wales was shown on one map. (See map of English and Welsh counties in the 19th century). To require that every part of England and Wales had a pauper lunatic asylum, the 1845 County Asylums Act said that every county and every borough should make provision.

sick

think and thought: Germanic origin words. A related word of French origin being reason

wise and unwise

late Old English (1000-1149)

1066: Norman invasion The Norman ruling classes spoke Norman French. Official business was conducted, and official documents written, in Latin. This was the third, and most important, introduction of Latin into Britain. The subjugated Saxon population continued to speak Old English. Over the following three centuries the French and Old English languages blended to form Middle English

paralysis (see palsy below)

prison From French, and before that Latin. Prehendere is like apprehend: to seize or hold. So, originally, to prison somebody was to seize them and hold them in custody and a prison was a building in which they could be kept (see Newgate). In the legal system, it could be a building where they waited trial. The idea of prison as the punishment for crime developed much later.

Middle English (1150 to 1349 or 1469)

One might expect the development of universities to lead to an increase in words directly or indirectly from Latin, which would be reinforced by the interest in Greek and Latin classic in the Renaissance

advocate: Generally: A person who pleads, intercedes, or speaks for another. It also means a person whose profession is to plead causes in courts of law. This is especially the use in Scotland. In the USA it means any lawyer. To advocate, means to speak in favour of an idea. From the 1970s it was used for speaking up for people with disabilities - especially mentally handicapped people.

ague An acute fever. In late Middle English a malarial fever with cold, hot, and sweating stages (at first especially the hot stage, later especially the cold). From the late 16th century could also mean any shivering fit.

bad

drit, which became dirt, dates from about 1300. Originally excrement (as in "urine and drit") or other things, such as soil, that would make something unclean. Dirty dates from the 16th century. By the end of the century it had the extended meaning of something which dirties morally. In the phrase "dirty patients" the reference is to incontinence. See White House 1831 - Bethnal House 1830 - Hope House Hammersmith - 1844 Report: separation - Durham - Grove Place - Hilsea - Lainston - Conolly 1847 - Gaskell and wet beds - The phrase "dirty habits" probably also refers to incontinence, and not masturbation. See Catherine Williams - 1857 foul laundry The phrase dirty and disgusting practices, however, appears to refer to masturbation.

dote Verb: Generally to be silly or deranged. Act or talk foolishly or stupidly. Special meaning of mental impairment in old age. (Middle English. Strong links with Dutch but also links to French). The noun dotard developed in late Middle English. Dote on, to be exceedingly (excessively) fond on, is a late 15th century development.

coroner

See Blackstone

defective 1472: A market place cross defective and likely to fall. Used to indicate people with mental and physical defects by 1890s (See 1899 Act and 1913 Act)

fool: via French from Latin. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary says it is a modified form of the French fou meaning "mad or madman". The Latin was from the word for bellows, which went from wind-bag to empty-headed person. One of the English meanings was for the jester employed in a great household. In late Middle English it acquired the meaning "A person with a mental handicap or mental illness". (New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary) [See also Tomfool] The terms "born fool" and "natural fool" would indicate what we would now regard as mental retardation rather than mental illness. See Blackstone (1765-) "An idiot, or natural fool, is one that has had no understanding from his nativity"

frantic and frenetic via French and Latin from the Greek for delirium. In Middle English they meant mentally deranged, insane; violently or ragingly mad. (see 1285) By the early 17th century they had lost the association with insanity and meant wildly excited.

heir A legal term (from French and Latin): An heir is someone who receives (or is entitled to receive) property or rank in succession to someone else. This was, quite quickly, used with broader meanings. Adam (the first man) was the "heir to failure". It was also used for any offspring or descendent, or for anything they inherited. By 1828, Webster's New American Dictionary had three definitions of hereditary: 1. descended from an ancestor. Example: He is in possession of a large hereditary estate. 2. May descend from an ancestor to an heir. Example: The crown of Great Britain is hereditary. 3. Is or may be transmitted from a parent to a child; Examples: hereditary pride; hereditary bravery; hereditary disease. [See taint]. Hereditary disease appears quite late. The Oxford Dictionary has examples from 1597 (hereditary leprosy) - 1699 (hereditary gout) and 1826 (hereditary disease). Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) refers to the "temperature" received from one's father as a "hereditary disease" and an "inbred cause" of melancholy, but one which could skip generations. John Johnston (Medical Jurisprudence. On Madness (1800), in a section on "The Taint of Madness" says "Of all the hereditary diseases, madness is supposed to be the most constant and persevering". He hoped the belief was "much exaggerated, since the subject, as generally understood, must naturally rouse the most dreadful apprehensions in the minds of those whose views are directed to the future health of their progeny". A chilling fictional account of possible hereditary madness was created by Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers ("A Madman's Manuscript") (1836). The actual causes of the madness, he argued in an end note, "included the strange delusion, founded upon a well-known medical theory, strongly contended for by some, and as strongly contested by others, that an hereditary madness existed in his family. This produced a settled gloom, which in time developed a morbid insanity, and finally terminated in raving madness". (Drawn to my attention by David Parker, who is writing a companion to The Pickwick Papers) [See also degeneration theory, which developed in the mid 19th century]

hospital in the sense of somewhere that receives and entertains pilgrims, travellers, or strangers. Hostel has the same (French) origin. A later form of hostel is hotel. (move down)

idiot via French from the Latin for an ignorant person, it meant in English a person of extremely low intelligence

See use in 1464 Blackstone 1844 use in 1913

inquest

lunatic In its original Latin it was a type of periodic insanity believed to be affected by the phases of the moon (luna), but it entered English law as the term for such an unsoundness of mind as justified interfering with a person's civil rights, or considering their transactions invalid.

See Chancery Lunatic Blackstone and 1808 County Asylums Act. 1844 The 1890 Lunacy Act remained in force to 1959.

medicine:   1) treating illness, especially treating it with drugs and/or regulating diet or habits. Distinguished from surgery (chirurgery) which treats injury or other body disorders by a physical operation.   2) substances used to treat illness, especially ones that are swallowed.

melancholy: what we would now call depression. A word from the Greek formed from joining the words for black and bile. Bile is a bitter fluid that the body uses in digestion. It was known as choler (sometimes cholera) and was one of the four body fluids (humours) thought to determine a person's physical and mental qualities. Choler made you angry. Black bile, known as choler adust is a thick black fluid thought to make one sad. The other two fluids are blood and phlegm. Phlegm made you lazy or apathetic. Blood made you brave, hopeful and amorous. (See Galen) [Early 17th century melancholia - See 1844 and 1925]

palsy (paralysis with shakes). Used in 1611 Bible

paroxysm medical Latin from Greek roots meaning something like sharpen beyond. Originally, in late Middle English, a severe episode of a disease. By the 17th century also used for a fit, a convulsion or an energetic outburst of emotion or activity. See uses in 1844. 1968 Nurses Dictionary: "A sudden attack, or recurrence of a symptom of a disease".

passion: from the Latin for bearing, undergoing, suffering; with Christian Latin emphasis on intense suffering in the cause of immense love. The word entered English as the word for Christ's suffering on the cross and for the story of it as told in medieval drama, music and ritual. Nowadays, we distinguish this meaning with a capital: The Passion.

Other meanings in medieval English are any form of suffering or affliction, a painful illness, strong barely controllable emotion, strong sexual feeling, and something that drives you from outside (passion as opposed to action, which is directed by yourself).

Today, passion is strong feeling. Its broader cosmic meaning can still be felt in Mary Wollstonecraft (1791) when she writes:

" When that wise being who created us and placed us here, saw the fair idea, he willed, by allowing it to be so, that the passions should unfold our reason, because he could see that present evil would produce future good."

In Mary Wollstonecraft's analysis, passion and imagination are closely linked, and they are the driving force of reason

But passion can also unseat reason (Mercier 1890) or go beyond reason.

person: from Latin (via French) persona, applied to a mask used by an actor or a person who plays a part. In English had the meaning of a part played in a drama or real life and, also, the meaning of an individual human being. Also a human being as distinct from a thing or an animal. Personality developed by late Middle English for the quality of being a person. Another word for personality, character, took on the meaning distinctive features of the individual much later.

pudding The rule of kitchen economy is not to waste. So as well as knowing about soup, you must know about pudding. (The word comes originally from a word for bowel). When you kill an animal you will use all of it. The stomach and intestine make handy skins to contain the suet (fat), blood, etc for boiling. This makes pudding. Black pudding is a sausage-shaped pudding made with blood and suet. Suet pudding does not need a skin: You mix the suet with flour. By the nineteenth century a pudding is probably usually something made by mixing with flour and cooking: suet pudding and plum pudding being well known. If catering for large numbers in an institution, suet pudding is a sensible meal because you boil the lean of the meat one day for a solid dinner, use the stock for soup the next, and serve suet pudding made with the fat the next. 1870 Dictionary: pudding is "a sort of farinaceous food". farinaceous is made with meal or flour.

rave Originally to be mad or show signs of madness or delirium. See the later contrast of mania or raving madness with melancholy, as depicted outside the Moorfield's Bedlam (1666). The original meaning was extended to wild or furious speech, whether or not the speaker was mad. See Dickens' many uses, including "whether it be the genuine production of a maniac, or founded upon the ravings of some unhappy being"

reason: from French. See think

See glossary of thinking

tremble: Shake with an involuntary movement under the influence of fear, excitement, weakness or disease (palsy). Quake, quiver, shiver. Also (a development) being in a state of extreme dread, apprehension or awe.

late Middle English: (1350-1469) Chaucer amentia "Amentia and madness is all one, as Plato sayeth" (John de Trevisa 1398). See amentia/dementia and ament asylum: Latin from Greek for refuge. It entered English with the special meaning of a place of safety where criminals or political dissidents could escape the law. By the early 18th century it had its general meaning of a place of refuge, being applied to institutions by the mid 18th century. Through into the mid 19th century or later, however, there were other asylums than lunatic asylums, "orphan asylums" for example. See 1796 when "The Retreat" was founded and the end of lunatic, beginning of mental in the 20th century. Bedlam Bethlehem was shortened to Bedleem and Bedlem in Middle English. The hospital was nicknamed Bedlam from early on. From the early 16th century, bedlam also came to mean `mad'. Shakespeare, in Henry 6th, speaks of "the bedlam brain-sick duchess" (1590s?). This use lasted to the early 18th century, but the late 16th century was already using bedlamite. bleed An old English word that, in late middle English, acquired the specialist meaning of drawing or letting blood as a method of medical treatment. (see evacuate). coagulate: change from a fluid to a more or less solid state, as with blood clotting. (See Chick - Martin) community: see Social Science Dictionary and community care (below). An early use was a contrast between the nobility and the community of common people. In 1375 someone contrasts "lords at war" with community and a 1572 poem speaks of "barons and nobility that do oppress my poor community". But it was also used for the body of which nobility is the head. About 1380, Wycliff speaks of an emperor who is head in a community. consumption: "Consumption and wasting" [of the body] follows on the blood being made thin, according to Bartholomeus de Glanvilla (1398). In 1543, Bartholomew Traheron, a translator, explained to his readers that "Phthisis in Greek signifieth wasting..a consumption as we call it". Tobias Venner, in 1620, recommended the waters at Bath "for those that have the pthisicke, or consumption of the lungs". Hippocrates (460-375BC) gave the name phthisis to the disease as it affects the lungs. In 1901 the entry on a death certificate is phthisis pulmonalis (consumption of the lungs) and in 1899 an asylum form asked about the family history of madness, consumption or drink. By 1925 asylum forms used the word tuberculosis instead of consumption. In 1899, the case note form for an asylum asked about a "Family History of Madness, Consumption" or "Drink". In 1908 Iwan Bloch describes "alcoholism, syphilis, and tuberculosis" as the "three scourges of humanity". cupping: drawing blood by applying a heated cup to the scarified (scratched) skin. Also called wet cupping. The practice as a treatment for disease is old and found in different cultures. It drew meaning from Galenic, but pre- dates that. deviation from: divergence from a course, method, rule, or norm (From French. Use may have been specialised) diarrhoea from Greek for flow rrhoea. The flowing of excrement in a fluid form. dissolution: from the Latin word for dissolve. In late Middle English could mean a body breaking into its parts, something becoming enfeebled, a falling apart of behaviour (immorality), a partnership breaking up, or the end of something. The special meaning developed in the 19th century of dissolution as the opposite of evolution. See Herbert Spencer 1862 and Hughlings Jackson 1883 dysentery From the Greek for bad entrails (intestines, bowels). In the 1611 Bible, Acts 28:8 is translated "the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux". Wyclif (1382) translated it "The fadir of Puplius..trauelid with feueres and dissenterie or flix". The 1900 dictionary defines dysentery as "Inflammation of the mucous membrane of the large intestine, accompanied generally with much fever and great prostration, frequent stools, the discharges being mixed with blood and mucus or other morbid matter, griping of the bowels and tenesmus" Wikipedia on dysentery Amoebic dysentery or endemic dysentery: Amoeba dysenteriae Bacilliary dysentery or epidemic dysentery: B. dysenteriae - Now known as shigella (after Shiga) - This is asylum dysentery R.H. Firth 1908 The Theory and Practice of Hygiene, page 666 "what is called dysentery clinically is not in etiological respects one single disease" [Because they are caused by two different organisms, one of which was identified by Shiga in 1897] "dysentery ... occurs in two main types... endemic and epidemic...The causative agent of endemic dysentery is a protozoon, known as the Amoeba dysenteriae; while epidemic dysentery is caused by a bacillus, known as the B. dysenteriae. This recognition of the essential difference between the causative agents of these two kinds or types of dysentery suggests the abandonment of such terms as endemic and epidemic, and replacing them by more definite names of amoebic and bacillary dysentery. asylum dysentery "Asylum dysentery was caused by a close relative of E.coli, shigella. It occurred in every mental hospital. In a bad year it ranked as the third most common cause of death in them, after syphilis of the brain and tuberculosis." Hugh Pennington on MRSA, London Review of Books 15.12.2005 Wikepedia on shigella Todar's online textbook Bacteria identified by Kiyoshi Shiga (1871-1957 biography) in 1897 and Aldo Castellani (1875-1971) and Albert J. Chalmers (1870-1920) in 1919 Rodney E. Rohde on Bacterial an Viral Infections of the Digestive System See Claybury and Edinburgh R.H. Firth 1908 The Theory and Practice of Hygiene, pages 665 and 667-668 "Dysentery Formerly this disease was very prevalent in this country, but in the present day it is practically confined to hot climates... soil contaminated with excremental matters is undoubtedly one of the most important contributing conditions essential to the occurrence of dysentery. Many of the notable outbreaks in institutions such as prisons, asylums, and schools are well-known instances of this kind... [667] The infectivity of bacillary dysentery lies in the stools... the frequent epidemic prevalence of dysentery in asylums is worthy of notice; this is invariably of the bacillary variety and, occurring as it does not only in old but also in new asylums, where no hygienic defects can be pointed to other than some degree of overcrowding, it is suggestive of the existence in the insane of some condition or conditions rendering them peculiarly susceptible to this disease... [W. Bernard] Knoble {footnote "On the Etiology of Asylum Dysentery" Journal of Mental Science April 1906}... adduces evidence in support of the view that dysentery in the insane is not spread by the transfer of recovered cases from ward to ward, but is caused by a normal inhabitant of the colon which becomes pathogenic when the resisting power of the tissue is sufficiently reduced... [668] The analogy between the physical states of many insanes in institutions and the cachectic states of soldiers and others exposed to hardships is close... It is highly probable that the specific cause of bacillary dysentery is often present in the body without giving rise to the disease. The explanation being that the healthy bowel does not afford a favourable soil for its growth; it is only when the intestinal membrane is impaired, as by excessive or extreme vicissitudes of temperature, by exposure to cold, bad or deficient food, impure water, or by cachectic conditions such as scurvy or malaria, that it becomes vulnerable to the attacks of the lower organisms" dotage dotard evacuate: From a Latin word meaning to empty, especially to empty the bowels (Germanic English: shit). Also used for removing some blood or causing great sweating, which were considered to be ways of depleting body humours. In late middle English the word purge (remove dirt) was also used for evacuating the bowels and for clearing the stomach by vomiting (Old English: spew). A laxative is a medicine that purges the bowels. The word emetic, for a medicine that causes vomiting, was not used until the late 17th century. (See 1758 and 1844) flux or flix. From French or Latin for flow. A flowing. As well as the flowing of tides (flux and reflux) it was used for an abnormal flow from the body of blood or excrement (for example). Thus for diarrhoea and dysentery furor:   fury, rage; madness. From Latin furere to rage. Cosin 1592: "an entire and full blindness or darkening of the understanding of the mind, whereby a man knows not at all, what he does or says.." 1968 Nurses Dictionary: "A state of intense excitement during which violent acts may be performed. This may occur following an epileptic fit". See Birmingham Workhouse 1843 hypochondria It means under (hypo) khondros (the gristle of the ribs). Here, in the abdomen at the side of the stomach, anatomists found the liver, gall bladder, and spleen. The area was regarded as the seat of melancholy and vapours. By the seventeenth century, hypochondria meant depression or low spirits for which there is no real cause. See Burton (1632) and Lamb (1802). mania (late Latin from Greek) mad. The word is made by adding "ia" (disorder) to the Indo-European root for mind. The word maniac developed from mania. Mania or raving madness and melancholy were the two statues outside the Moorfield's Bedlam. The 1844 Report says mania is the term "used to designate... madness... affecting all the operations of the mind. Hence the term total or general insanity is used as synonymous with mania.". See also 1925 moral ( Latin moralis which translates the Greek ethikos) Based on mor- or mos meaning custom. The plural gives mores - manners - morals. The narrow meaning relating to behaviour which is good (moral) or bad (immoral) can be misleading when it comes to moral insanity - moral management - moral statistics - moral sciences nurse: This is a contraction of a word meaning to nourish. A nurse was someone, not the mother, who breast-fed babies. This is now called a wet-nurse. The word was extended to describe any one who cared for children, so one had dry-nurses who cared for small children without breast-feeding them. The child-care analogy is still dominant in Shakespeare's Two Gentleman of Verona when Julia speaks of a "foolish love That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse And presently all humbled kiss the rod!" But, later, when Proteus counsels Valentine "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st. Time is the nurse and breeder of all good." perhaps there is also the analogy of one who cares for the sick - including sick adults. intoxicate medical Latin from to poison. Originally meant to poison. Not until the late 16th century that it meant "stupefy, madden or deprive of the ordinary use of the senses or reason with a drug or alcoholic liquor; inebriate, make drunk" (Oxford Dictinary) putrid: from Latin for rotten rapt from Latin to carry of by force. You could be rapt physically (from which comes the word rape) or in the spirit. Rapt in the spirit could mean being transported with delight, or carried into heaven. From this developed the idea of rapture. raving symptom: Medical Latin for something that indicates a disease. At the same time (late middle English), disease (originally just absence of ease) became medically a disorder of the body's structure or function, with specific diseases having particular signs or symptoms. sublime Late Middle English from the Latin for to lift up or elevate. Used for heating a substance that turns into a vapour which, on cooling, deposits a solid. By the early seventeenth century, sublimation was used for changing anything into a higher (sublime) state, including ones state of mind. taint Late Middle English with possible French origins in "touch" and "tinged". A stain, blemish; spot or trace of some bad or undesirable quality. Charles Lamb's (1797) Vision of Repentance includes a "virgin fame" which is "tainted" by a "deed of shame". During recovery from her matricidal insanity Mary Lamb received conviction that she was "absolved in heaven from all taint of the deed in which she had been the agent". Referring to the same period of the Lambs' lives, a hereditary taint of insanity in the family is spoken about by Brian Procter in 1866. Although Jayne Eyre (1847) deals with hereditary taint in a family, the term is not used. In Wilkie Collins story The Queen of Hearts (1859 or earlier) however, "hereditary taint" is used in relation to: "It is enough to say that at intervals almost every form of madness appeared in the family, monomania being the most frequent manifestation of the affliction among them" See Bloch 1908, Frederick Mott 1926, Henderson and Gillespie 1927 fear of heredity taint tomfool Tom, an abbreviation of Thomas, was used from late Middle English as a term for a common (of the people) man. Tomfool developed at the same period as a term for idiot or madman. So the term may have the inference that the tomfool is the common people's jester. Fool acquired the meaning of mad or idiotic person in the same period. Tom of Bedlam. was current from the mid-16th to late 17th centuries. The female equivalent in the folk song is Mad Maudlin. This term is heavy with meaning. Maudlin is Mary Magdalen. The Mary may link to the original name of "Bedlam" St Mary of Bethlem (That Mary, presumably, being the mother of Jesus). Tradition said that Mary Magdalen was a prostitute (Reformed by Jesus). visit and visitor Deus visitabit vos may mean "God will visit you". Anyway, the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that phrases like this from the Latin Vulgate shaped the uses of visit when it entered the English language from Latin in the early 15th century. A "visitor" was someone appointed to inspect and possibly supervise churches and other institutions such as abbeys and colleges. It quotes from 1643 "and over colleges, hospitals, and such public foundations, visitors are appointed". In the 19th century, "asylum visitors" were either inspectors or the management. See the 1845 Acts, for example.

Late 15th century (1470- 1470)

normal Entered English from French or Latin. It has the same Latin root as norms: made according to a carpenter's square, or right angled or (in medieval Latin) regular. But in the late 15th century its only English use was rare: a "normal verb" was a regular verb. By the mid 17th century it was used in English for something right-angled or perpendicular. It meaning as usual, typical or ordinary emerges in the early 19th century. Quetelet's concept of the "average man" might (but was not) have been called the normal man. Its statistical use developed in the late nineteenth century. The uses of the term to mean conventional and physically or mentally sound or healthy, may also be a late 19th century development. The use of abnormal has a parallel development.

pauper (from Latin for poor) in the sense of a poor person or someone dependent on charity. Later, narrower meaning of someone receiving poor law relief. This is its usual meaning and the meaning in the phrase pauper lunatic

Early 16th century (1500- 1529)

degenerate as a noun and adjective entered English in the late 15th century. As a verb, it arrived in the mid-16th century. It derived from the Latin degenero, meaning to become unlike one's kind, to fall off, go bad or degenerate. The following examples of its English use illustrate that its meaning was not usually related to biology (and not to race) until the late 19th century. But the association was much earlier in France. "When men degenerate, and by sin put off the nature of man." Thomas Taylor, who died in 1632 "How the son degenerates from the sire." Alexander Pope, who died in 1744 "How completely his past life has degenerated his once noble constitution." (Anne Bronte, who died in 1849) 1861: Herbert Spencer's use of the terms evolution and dissolution 1879/1880 Degeneration : a chapter in Darwinism 1880s: Hughlings Jackson's use of the terms evolution and dissolution "In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being" (Robert Louis Stevenson in 1881) 1885 Degeneration amongst Londoners 1892: Entartung, by Max Simon Nordau 1900 dictionary: To fall off from the qualities proper to the race or kind 6.10.1903: Does Hygiene lead to Racial Degeneration? " syphilis rivals alcohol in its potency as a cause of racial degeneration ... The third disease leading to degeneration is tuberculosis" (Iwan Bloch 1908) 1911: The formation and degeneration of the oak forests "It is not pure chance that the Bolshevic teaching flourishes in those regions whose degenerate population has been brought to the verge of starvation" (Adolph Hitler in 1925) "the view previously held that familial "degeneracy" was inevitably progressive was unnecessarily gloomy; and there is evidence that Nature tends to mend, rather than to end, a psychotic strain." (Henderson and Gillespie, 1927) "The deplorable Jukes family, their dismal record of defectives and degenerates." (Walter Sprott, psychologist 1897-1971)

Mid 16th century (1530- 1569)

agglutinate: stick together: as with glue. (See bacteria and blood cells - Wikipedia)

aetiology Medical Latin for the study of causes.

changeling A changeable person. Someone substituted for another. Often a baby secretly substituted for another in infancy. Later (early 17th century) a half-witted person. 1900 dictionary: "One apt to change; a waverer (in Shakespeare) a child, often a deformed or stupid child supposed to be substituted by fairies for another; hence an idiot; a fool."

cholera: Thomas Cooper: 1565 Thesaurus lingua Romana et Britannica "Cholera..the humour called Choler. Also a sickness of the stomach, with a troublous flixe and vomit..the choleric passion" The Oxford English Dictionary suggests three successive meanings for cholera: 1) as another word for choler, examples from Chaucer on. 2) a European summer disease with diarrhoea and sickness, as in Cooper's second example. 3) the disease reported from India (1816) that reached England in 1831.

delirium Cosin 1592: "that weakness of conceit and consideration which we call dotage: when a man, through age or infirmity, falls to be child again in discretion, albeit he understand what is said, and can happely speak somewhat pertinently unto sundry matters"

delusion A false impression or opinion, especially as a symptom of a disordered or diseased mind. The Oxford Dictionary quotes Thomas Moore (1478-1535) "Things...done by the devil for our delusion".

epilepsy a (medical) condition in which the person is, from time to time, seized or taken hold of by fits.

"Of the falling sickness   Epilepsia is a convulsion, drawing, and stretching of all partes of the body, not continually, but that which chances at sundry times, with hurt of the mind and sense..." (Barrough 1583)

hospital in the sense of somewhere that treats sick people. (move down)

imbecile: Entered English in the mid-16th century as an adjective meaning (mainly physically) weak, or impotent. Via French from the Latin for "without support". It acquired its meaning of mentally weak in the early nineteenth century. See use of term "congenital imbecility" in the 1844 Lunacy Report. See Carisbrooke House of Industry in the 19th century, where "imbecile wards" accomodate those not lunatic or idiot enough to require an asylum. The 1870 Census of England Act required to know if people were "blind, or deaf and dumb, or imbecile or lunatic", and this was asked (in varying forms) in 1871 - 1881 - 1891 - 1901. The public were not clear what an imbecile was. The 1886 Idiots Act used the term imbecile as well as idiot. The 1890 Lunacy Act did not. Idiot, imbecile (and feeble-minded) acquired distinct legal definitions in 1913. In French (1798 Dictionary) it had the meaning of the infirmities of old age that make an old person like a child, and was a legal term for physical and mental incapacity in old age.

lunacy

stupid: Via French from a Latin word, on eof the meanings of which was to be stunned or numbed. Applied to a person, meant unintelligent, slow-witted; obtuse, foolish.

syndrome (together-run) A group of symptoms that tend to appear together. Presumed to indicate a specific disease (the cause of which may yet be unknown).

1530 Girolamo Fracastoro (1483-1553), a Veronese physician, wrote a poem in latin called Syphilis, sive Morbus Gallicus. (Syphilis, or the French Disease?. Syphilus, a character in it, gave his name to the disease syphiliis from which he was the supposed first sufferer. See Syphilis and the Shepherd of Atlantis (archive) by Stephen J. Gould, published in Natural History, October 200.

Late 16th century (1570- 1599) (Shakespeare's plays 1590-1613)

Bedlamite

cuckoo: Shorter Oxford Dictionary: "A person who behaves like a cuckoo; specifically (slang) a silly person. Late 16th century". Jonathan Green on slang terms for insane or crazy. "...little has been discarded. The oldest of such terms, cuckoo, can be found in Henry 4th, part 2 (1600)... barmy (17th century)... comes from barm yeast, and implies a brain bubbling over with manic energy... Cracked (17th century) is yet another vintage term"

deficient A theological concept (used in Latin by Thomas Aquinas) of the deficient as distinct from the efficient cause. (Meaning, I think, that God does not cause sin: Human failure does). Used with the general meaning of incomplete, lacking in something or defective by the early 17th century. Shakespeare in Othelo (1604) writes "Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense". (Othelo I. iii. 63). Phrase "mental deficiency" from or before 1856. (See Mercier 1890   1913 Act and 1913 terms).

dementia (Latin demens: = senseless, mad, foolish). The Oxford Dictionary dates from the late 18th century. But: Cosin 1592: already defines it (as) "a passion of the mind, bereaving it of the light of understanding: Or... when a man's perceivance and understanding of all things is taken away..." See amentia/dementia - 1844 - dementia praecox - 1925

insanity of mind: sanus Latin for health " Madfolkes and Lunaticke persons, during the time of their furor or insanitie of minde, cannot make a testament" Swinburne Testaments 36b, (1590)

See Blackstone

Insanity is not a Latin term for madness, but for lack of health. It entered (legal) English as an adjective for such in relation to mind and so became another English word for madness. The word sane from which it is derived, did not enter English until very late in the 17th century and fought a losing battle to mean generally sound or healthy (Johnson 1755: "Baynard wrote a poem on preserving the body in a sane and sound state"). Insanity already meant madness, so sanity had to mean not mad: (Coleridge 1818: "The activity of sane minds in healthful bodies.")

maniac Word developed from mania, meaning a person with mania or raving madness

rant from the Dutch ranten to talk foolishly or rave In late 16th century English: be boisterous or riotous, revel or romp, or sing loudly. See ranter

rapture (from rapt). Seizure and carrying of (physically) or rape (late 16th century). Early 17th century: a state of excitement, a fit, exaltation as a result of religious experience, enthusiasm. Mid 17th century: "the transporting of believers to heaven at the second coming of Christ, according to some Millenarian teaching" (New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)

stigma (Late 16th century:) Developed from a Greek word for "to prick", a stigma was a brand or cut inflicted on the skin as a mark of disgrace. From the 17th century, the plural, stigmata, also described miraculous marks appearing on a person's body suggesting the wounds of the crucified Jesus. By the mid 19th century, stigma was used generally for any visible or apparent sign that there is something disgraceful about a person. So, in 1834, Harriet Martineau refers to an insane person being reinstated in society as reviving "a family stigma". In the mid twentieth century, stigma became a key concept of theories of social interaction and mental illness.

Bills of mortality Numbers of deaths with causes. See John Gaunt (1662) on their origin External link. The first (for London) he says were in 1592. By the middle of the 17th century the mortality or the mortality rate of a city (or other area) was a term for the number of deaths, per period. John Gaunt, in 1662, attempted to estimate the "number of inhabitants" (population) of London from the number of deaths. (external link). Edmund Halley, in 1693, used the Bills of Mortality for the German city of Breslaw (in Silesia) to calculate "degrees of the mortality of mankind" These used birth and death figures to show what "per cent" died at what age. The analysis and discussion being chiefly "designed for the Computation of the Values of Annuities on Lives". (External link) The "mortality of lunatics" in different asylums was used as means of comparing the asylums from the 1840s

virus Latin for a slimy liquid, poison, offensive odour or taste. In English, came to mean venom, literally of figuratively 1599: "You spit out all the virus and poison you could conceive in the abuse of his person". By the 18th century it could mean any substance that caused infectious disease. Chambers Cyclopedia 1728 defined "virulent" as "a term applied to any thing that yields a virus; that is, a corrosive or contagious pus". By the 1880s the word virus was being used for a micro- organism thought of as a small bacterium with unique growth requirements. Scientific American Supplement 4.6.1881 "Pasteur writes: '.. The virus is a microscopical parasite, which may be multiplied by cultivation outside of the body of an animal'". Filterable viruses were identified as disease-causing microorganisms that would pass through filters that retained bacteria. These have since been identified as non-cellular organisms consisting simply of a nucleic acid, usually a DNA or RNA core, inside a protein coat. They can only multiply in living host cells, and have been described as a "bridge between the living and the non- living". (external link). Viral diseases related to mental health history include those responsible for smallpox and for certain fevers and influenza.

Early 17th century (1600- 1629)

euthanasia (Greek: good death) began life innocently as a word for a gentle and easy death. David Hume developed it colourfully when he wrote "Absolute monarchy..is..the true Euthanasia of the British constitution", but it did not gain its meaning of a humane killing to release from an unwanted life until the mid-19th century.

hemiplegia (hemi=half) paralysis of one side of the body

hysterical in a state of uncontrolled excitement, anger, or panic believed to have been brought on by a disturbance in the womb (Greek hustera) See hysteria

non compos mentis Lawyers Latin "not in control of one's mind"

See Blackstone

septic Greek: putrifying. The Oxford English Dictionary's first example is 1605. Antiseptic developed in the late 18th century. 1751 Gentleman's Magazine "Myrrh in a watery menstruum was 12 times more antiseptic than sea salt". 1774 Priestley "This remarkable antiseptic power of nitrous air". See Lister 1867 Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery

Mid 17th century (1630- 1669)

complex From Latin via French, based on words for encompassing, embracing and linked to a word for plaited together. A complex is a whole consisting of parts knitted together. In the mid 19th century, mathematicians used it for complex number, where real numbers and imaginary numbers are knitted together. Then (late 19th century) the chemists used it for substances formed by the combination of simpler ones. Then (early 20th century) the psychoanalysts used it for a related group of usually repressed ideas, attitudes, and desires. (for example, the Oedipus complex. Then the people took it and said "he's got a complex about that" - meaning he has an obsession.

deviate meaning to turn aside from a path was used of turning aside from a physical or a moral course as in this quotation from William Austin's devotions, published by his wife in the 1630s: "We had not only deviated, and like sheep gone astray, but were become enemies".

erotic about sexual love came from French into English in the mid- 17th century, but erotical was a rare earlier form. Eros Latin from Greek name for the god of love also a word for sexual love: Entered English in the late 17th century. Erogenous and erotogenic, meaning capable of arousing sexual feeling, came in in the early 20th century being applied, for example, to erogenous zones of the body that are liable to get one sexually excited if played with.

farm In the Latin of medieval Europe, firma was a fixed payment. Our farm (agricultural) derives from paying rent for land. Farm (and especially "farm out") also had the meaning (from the mid-17th century) of subcontracting a job for a fee. In particular, the care of people, or the maintenance of an institution (workhouse for example) in which they were kept, for a fixed fee.

miasma. From 1665: a noxious vapour that was thought to carry diseases. The diseases might be called (18th century on) malarias. People wrote also of exhalations (from breathing out vapour). John Conolly wrote in 1847

"If story is piled upon story, and basement wards and dormitories are excavated, I believe no system of ventilation will prevent the air of the asylum from being generally unwholesome, and often highly offensive. From subterranean dormitories insidious streams of corrupted air are for ever rising, pervading every room above ground, ascending every staircase, and infecting every corner... In such asylums some of the attendants are always sick; febrile attacks, attended with great debility, are very common among them; what is called influenza becomes, as it were, domiciled and perpetual among them; and no one living under the roof of the asylum has the appearance of being in perfectly good health" (Conolly, J. 1847 p.30)

hysteric, meaning hysterical, came into use in the mid 17th century. I assume an "anti-hysteric" was a medicine thought to be good for disorders of the womb or for hysteria. However, an "hysteric" also meant this.

pathology - disease (patho) study. Word origin in English, early 17th century. This is its use in the title Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology (1848). However its special meaning as "the branch of medicine that deals