Of Bedlam patients and Civil War phantom limbs

Wm. Hogarth's depiction of BedlamMind Hacks reports that:

Amazon has an excerpt, detailing three patients, from the book Presumed Curable: An Illustrated Casebook of Victorian Psychiatric Patients in Bethlem Hospital (ISBN 1871816483) as part of its ‘look inside’ feature. The book includes photographs of patients from the Bethlem Royal Hospital, the world’s oldest psychiatric hospital, from the end of the 19th century just as photography was being used clinically.

Mind Hacks also reports on:

an early report of a phantom limb … from the partly-autobiographical fiction of American Civil War physician and writer Silas Weir Michell. It recounts the effect in a Civil War soldier who had both legs amputated after suffering battlefield injuries.

About Christopher Green

Professor of Psychology at York University (Toronto). Former editor of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. Creator of the "Classics in the History of Psychology" website and of the "This Week in the History of Psychology" podcast series.