Undertaker of the Mind:

John Monro and Mad-doctoring in Eighteenth-century England

University of California Press, 2001 - Biography & Autobiography - 364 pages

As visiting physician to Bethlem Hospital, the archetypal "Bedlam" and Britain's first and (for hundreds of years) only public institution for the insane, Dr. John Monro (1715-1791) was a celebrity in his own day. Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull call him a "connoisseur of insanity, this high priest of the trade in lunacy." Although the basics of his life and career are well known, this study is the first to explore in depth Monro's colorful and contentious milieu. Mad-doctoring grew into a recognized, if not entirely respectable, profession during the eighteenth century, and besides being affiliated with public hospitals, Monro and other mad-doctors became entrepreneurs and owners of private madhouses and were consulted by the rich and famous.
Monro's close social connections with members of the aristocracy and gentry, as well as with medical professionals, politicians, and divines, guaranteed him a significant place in the social, political, cultural, and intellectual worlds of his time. Andrews and Scull draw on an astonishing array of visual materials and verbal sources that include the diaries, family papers, and correspondence of some of England's wealthiest and best-connected citizens. The book is also distinctive in the coverage it affords to individual case histories of Monro's patients, including such prominent contemporary figures as the Earls Ferrers and Orford, the religious "enthusiast" Alexander Cruden, and the "mad" King George III, as well as his crazy would-be assassin, Margaret Nicholson.
What the authors make clear is that Monro, a serious physician neither reactionary nor enlightened in his methods, was the outright epitome of the mad-trade as it existed then, esteemed in some quarters and ridiculed in others. The fifty illustrations, expertly annotated and integrated with the text, will be a revelation to many readers.

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Review: Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England

User Review - Frank Spencer - Goodreads

This is a lucid presentation of the career of Monro. Some of the cases he dealt with, and the hospitals he worked in are explained. There are many illustrations from the period,which add to the effect. Read full review

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Selected pages

Title Page

Index

References

John Monro The Making of a MadDoctor	1

FORGING THE EARLY CAREER	3

JOHN MONRO AT BETHLEM AND BRIDEWELL	13

MONRO AND THE GREAT BEDLAM EXHIBITION	20

HOW TO TREAT A BEDLAMITE	28

The Real Use of Discussing Madness The Great Lunacy Debate	43

JOHN MONRO WILLIAM BATTIE AND ST LUKES HOSPITAL FOR LUNATICS	45

A VERY PUBLIC QUARREL	52

LUNACY AND THE MONEYED CLASSES	119

THE MADNESS OF A WHIG GRANDEE	123

HOW TO TREAT A LORD	131

LORD ORFORD RECOVERS HIS WITS AND LOSES THEM AGAIN	139

Mansions of Misery MadDoctors and the MadTrade	143

THE WIDER MARKET FOR THE MADBUSINESS	145

JOHN MONRO AND THE PRIVATE MADBUSINESS	160

FOR THE BEST AND THE WORST PURPOSES? MONRO MADHOUSES AND FALSE CONFINEMENT	170

JUDGING A DEBATE	59

A CAUTIOUS RAPPROCHEMENT	70

Madness in Their Methodism Religious Enthusiasm the MadDoctors and the Case of Alexander Cruden	73

THE MONROS AND METHODICAL MADNESS	75

ALEXANDER THE CORRECTOR AND THE MONROS	93

THE MADMAN AND HIS MADDOCTORS	107

CRUDENS FINAL CALL FROM GOD	111

A LAST JUDGMENT OF CRUDENS CASE	112

Mad as a Lord Monro and the Case of the Earl of Orford	117

MONRO BECOMES PART OF THE BUSINESS	179

Murder Most Foul Madness Most High The Courtroom the Stateroom and the Misty Summits of the MadDoctors Expertise	191

THE FEROCIOUS EARL FERRERS	193

AND STATE COMMITTALS TO BETHLEM	215

THE ROYAL MALADY AND THE END OF MONROS CAREER	254

Notes	265

Select Bibliography	345

Index	357

Copyright

Common terms and phrases

admission Alexander Cruden alleged apothecary April attempt attended Battie's Treatise BCGM Bedlam Bethlem Bethlem Hospital Bethnal Green Bridewell British Brooke House BSCM century claimed College of Physicians committee contemporary Corrector court cure death disorder doctors Earl Ferrers eighteenth eighteenth-century England Engraving European Magazine evidence example false confinement father Ferrers's Fiske George George III governors History Horace Walpole hospital Hoxton Hunter and Macalpine HW to Mann Ibid insanity James Monro John Monro John's Jonathan keeper kind permission king King's Lady's Magazine London Lord Lord Mansfield Luke's lunatic mad-business mad-doctor madhouse Margaret Nicholson medicine ment mental Methodists Miles's nephew Observations Orford Pargeter patients person physician Plot Investigated Portrait practice practitioners Printed private madhouses Psychiatry religious Remarks Reproduced by kind Roy Porter Royal seems servants social Thomas Monro tion Trade in Lunacy treatment trial visiting visitors Walpole's Whitefield William Battie

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References from web pages

JAMA -- Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in ...
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Sander L. Gilman - Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad ...
Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England. Medicine and Society, no. 11. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of ...
muse.jhu.edu/ journals/ bulletin_of_the_history_of_medicine/ v076/ 76.4gilman01.html

Essay Review : Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull. Undertaker of ...
Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-century England. London, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. ...
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Undertaker of the mind: John Monro and mad-doctoring in eighteenth ...
Andrews J, Scull A. Undertaker of the mind. John Monro and mad-doctoring in eighteenth-century England. Med Soc (Berkeley). 2001;11:1�364. [pubmed] ...
www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ articlerender.fcgi?artid=1044773

ingentaconnect Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad ...
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Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England. (Reviews of Books).(Book Review) from Albion in Reference provided by ...
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Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull. Undertaker of the Mind: John ...
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 39(4), 383-386 Fall 2003. Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). ...
doi.wiley.com/ 10.1002/ jhbs.10148

Light on the making of psychiatry : Article : Nature
BOOK REVIEWED-Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England. by Jonathan Andrews & and Andrew Scull ...
www.nature.com/ nature/ journal/ v415/ n6869/ full/ 415262a.html

Undertaker of the Mind
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Chicago Journals - Isis
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About the author (2001)

Jonathan Andrews is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Oxford Brookes University. His publications include The History of Bethlem (1997) and "They're in the Trade of Lunacy" (1998). Andrew Scull, author of Social Order/Mental Disorder (California, 1989; 1992) and The Most Solitary of Afflictions (1993), among other books, is Professor of Sociology and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

Bibliographic information

Title	Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-doctoring in Eighteenth-century England Volume 11 of Medicine and society, ISSN 1543-5024
Authors	Jonathan Andrews, Andrew T. Scull
Edition	illustrated, annotated
Publisher	University of California Press, 2001
ISBN	0520231511, 9780520231511
Length	364 pages
Subjects	History › Europe › Great Britain Biography & Autobiography / Medical Biography & Autobiography / Social Scientists & Psychologists History / Europe / Great Britain Psychology / History

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