Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England

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Cambridge University Press, Aug 31, 1981 - Medical - 352 pages
Mystical Bedlam explores the social history of insanity of early seventeenth-century England by means of a detailed analysis of the records of Richard Napier, a clergyman and astrological physician, who treated over 2000 mentally disturbed patients between 1597 and 1634. Napier's clients were drawn from every social rank and his therapeutic techniques included all the types of psychological healing practised at the time. His vivid descriptions of his clients' afflictions and complaints illuminate the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people. This book goes beyond simply analysing mental disorder in a seventeenth-century astrological and medical practice. It reveals contemporary attitudes towards family life, describes the appeal of witchcraft and demonology to ordinary villagers, and explains the social and intellectual basis for the eclectic blend of scientific, magical, and religious therapies practised before the English Revolution. Not only is it a contribution to the history of medicine but also a survey of some of the darkest regions of the mental world of the English people of the seventeenth century.
 

Contents

A healer and his patients
13
I
40
3
47
47
67
Stress anxiety and family life
72
52
74
Popular stereotypes of insanity
112
I
117
Disorders of mood and perception
148
a discarded image
160
Psychological healing
173
Patients fearing demons or reportedly possessed
201
Age and sex of Napiers mentally disturbed
233
Cross tabulations of psychological symptoms
246
Symptoms of acute disorders
247
Disturbed patients from hundreds
261

Madness and suicide
132
Proofs of lunacy
138
124
145
Villages producing ten or more mentally
275
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