Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety and Healing in Seventeenth-Century EnglandMystical 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 |
Common terms and phrases
afflictions Alan Macfarlane Anatomy of Melancholy ancholy Anglican anxiety Ashml astrologer Bedlam behavior beliefs bewitched Buckinghamshire Burton caused Chap choly church complained consultations contemporary cure death demons despair Devil disease distracted disturbed clients economic effects Elias Ashmole emotional England English evidence evil example fear grief hath healing Higham Ferrers husbands insanity John kind laymen Linford London lunacy lunatic madmen madness marriage married masters medicine melan mental disorder mentally disturbed patients Mistress mopish Napier treated Napier's clients Napier's patients Napier's practice natural neighbors Northamptonshire ordinary Paracelsian parents passions Peter Laslett physical physicians popular psychiatric psychological Puritan raging Ralph Josselin records Religion and Magic religious remedies Richard Richard Napier Satan servants seventeenth century sick Simon Forman social soul spirits stereotypes stress suffered suicide supernatural symptoms Table tempted Thomas thought tions traditional troubled in mind villagers William witchcraft witches wives woman women wrote